Taste the grape?

[agentorange]

I recently purchased a bunch of muscat grapes at whole foods and really enjoyed the taste of the pure grape. I realize many of the other varietals aren't nearly as tasty, but does anyone know if it is possible to purchase other types of grapes...Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, etc. for eating/tasting?

Sounds like a dumb question, maybe, but for a novice drinker, it sounded like a good way to really identify the tastes of the varietal.

I'm in No. Cal.

[Mark Sommelier]

I've been told by growers that the only grape that tastes like the wine made from it is gewurztraminer.

[Jason Perlow]

I've been told by growers that the only grape that tastes like the wine made from it is gewurztraminer.

Really? I've heard that about Riesling. Although considering the Gewurtz is a hybrid of Riesling and Traminer...

[Carolyn Tillie]

I disagree with Mark - last year I was able to taste all the grapes of the various wines being made by the wineries I work for. While Gewurtz was definitely the sweetest, the others had distinct tastes. Better than the grapes themselves, is the juice from those grapes when they are freshly picked and crushed. Granted, by and large they just taste like "grapes" but there are specific differences that are hard to describe.

Alas, I don't think they can be purchased. However, depending on what part of NoCal you live in, there are a number of wineries that allow sampling of the grapes themselves during harvest. Domaine Carneros always has clusters lying on trays in their foyer. I also see a lot of people stopping by the side of the road of various wineries to pluck a few grapes to taste...

[Brad Ballinger]

I've heard that about muscat -- that it's one of the best vinifera grapes for eating out of hand. I've only had cabernet sauvignon grapes (at a winery at harvest time), and those didn't do much for me.

I have no idea where they can be purchased for out of hand consumption.

[Bombdog]

Well, you actually can purchase just about any of the wine grapes....but they normally come by the ton.

If you live near some vineyards you could possibly talk with the property owner about tasting seconds after harvest. Alot of vineyard owners used to leave posts on the bulletin board at school looking for people to come and pick the seconds (grapes remaining after harvest). Most home winemakers in the valley have some sort of connection that allow them to do just that. I personally made 20-40 cases of Pinot for several years from a friends vineyard just by harvesting the left overs.

[Rebel Rose]

Carolyn's right--wineries, especially small ones, often have offerings of ripe vinifera grapes for tasting during harvest. When I worked at Wild Horse, we'd even put pitchers of fresh pressed juice out on the counter for customers to taste. (But that was a decade ago, back in the day.)

Wine grapes are very small and seedy, not voluptuous and juicy like table grapes. The flavor and pigment is locked into the skin, and seeds are an important tannin contributor, so ideally a winemaker wants a high skin-to-juice ratio.

With practice, you can taste grapes warm from the picking bin and immediately know the variety.

Another important thing to watch for is the ripeness of the seeds, or pips. They should taste like toast or popcorn. Green pips mean the grapes have high sugar but are not truly ripe and will throw harsh tannins with high astringency.

I will admit though, when you first meet a vinifera grape, it's uh, size, is disappointing considering the price it commands later.

[Mark Sommelier]

When I was a student in Vienna, Austria, every Autumn the restaurants would have "Traubenmost". This was the partially fermented juice of the last harvest - hard grape must. You could taste the gruner veltliner and riesling characteristics, plus get REALLY LOADED. Too bad our wineries don't do this.

[britcook]

I've been told by growers that the only grape that tastes like the wine made from it is gewurztraminer.

Really? I've heard that about Riesling. Although considering the Gewurtz is a hybrid of Riesling and Traminer...

Gewurtz is the German for "spicy", hence Gewurtztraminer is the "spicy Traminer" grape, a clone of the original Traminer. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Riesling, other than it can take on similar characteristics.

[Adam Balic]

I've been told by growers that the only grape that tastes like the wine made from it is gewurztraminer.

Really? I've heard that about Riesling. Although considering the Gewurtz is a hybrid of Riesling and Traminer...

Have you a source for this information? I have never heard that gewurztraminer is anything other then an aromatic and pink skinned type/clone/variety of Traminer.

Mostly you can taste the wine in the grapes, but it does vary a lot and I have found it much easier with white grape varieties, especially the aromatic types (Muscat, gewurztraminer). Pinot gris grapes are very cute and tend to taste of the wine. Haven't tried chardonnay yet, but I suspect you would have more luck tasting the wine by sucking a plank of oak, then eating the grapes.

You can buy a strawberry flavoured American table grape Vitus labrusca in Italy and also the ( mostly illegal. but very common) wine made from it (both called fragolino). Both taste very strongly of strawberry flavoured bubblegum.

One obvious difference is that the grapes tend to be sweeter then the wine and that if the wines are aged they resemble the original fruit flavours less as well.