A fellow
noder requested that I do a writeup on this, and far be it from me to
refuse. A
table wine, roughly speaking, is a wine that contains no more than 14%
alcohol and is designed to be
imbibed alongside food. Interestingly, this covers pretty much everything we think of as "
wine," but would exclude the
excellent 1997 Geyser Peak Alexander Valley Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon I had the other night.
But I suspect the term has remained in some use primarily in order to distinugish these wines from dessert wines (such as Reislings) and fortified wines (such as port--yum). Not infrequently, you will see "Red Table Wine" on a bottle's label, but it really doesn't tell you much.
HOWEVER: French wines are classified according to a four-tiered system:
- Appellation controlee (the best)
- "Vins delimite, qualite superieur" (VDQS) (you don't see a lot of these in the US)
- Vins de pays--which are often marketed by grape variety and can offer good value if you know what to look for. A good example is the 1998 Triennes Viognier I reviewed.
- Vins de table--"table wines"--which are the lowest of the low (probably grown in someone's backyard and fermented in a cellar). Do NOT spend good money on a French vin de table.
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