What Does Reserve Wine Mean?
It could mean something great. Or nothing much.
By Erin Henderson
At the start of every wine class I teach, I say the same thing: the fun–and the frustration–of wine, is that there's never a simple answer.
Real wine nerds can disappear forever down marvellous rabbit holes that create a patch work across vineyards around the globe. For wine lovers of more of a passing fancy, this can be extremely irritating. (Don't even get me started on what it's like to teach wine to engineers.)
And that brings us to our latest fun/frustrating topic: Reserve Wines.
In places like Spain, Italy and Portugal, the use of term riserva or reserva has a very clear, legislated designation. Depending on the wine and the location, this indicates everything from lenght of time aging before release, to grapes used, to how the grapes are grown, and exactly where.
However, when we get to new world locations like Canada, Australia, or the US, things are little more... lax. Often, though far from always, wineries use "reserve" for wines they deem special; a step up from the standard offering. It could be the wines spent longer in barrel, grapes came from a top performing part of the vineyard, or the most effort was put into these wines.
But in other cases, the term may be nothing more than marketing, leading the consumer to believe the wine bottle they're buying for $12 is something really posh, when, ahhh, there's not much steak behind that sizzle.
Ultimately it is buyer beware when it comes to reserve wines from North America, Chile, or Australia, but don't take that as these wineries are twirling their moustaches and flipping their capes while laughing maniaclly about pulling one over on the consumer. Quite the opposite. Most are generally working hard to provide the best product they can for what they can reasonably charge.