Blending

There is an art to blending various wines into a single wine. It's similar to a chef adding varied amounts of fresh herbs to a dish, playing with the proportions until he arrives at the flavor he's seeking. Blending wine is more complex as the wine won't hit the market for months after the blending, and the wine is living, breathing and changing. Some of the greatest blenders are able to extrapolate their blends based on the flavor components of grapes tasted in the vineyards weeks before the harvest.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 1999