Chardonnay is a grape that most everyone is familiar with and most wine drinkers love it. Originally from the Burgundy Region of France, chardonnay is now planted all across the World with great success.

Chardonnay wines are often inarticulate in youth but will blossom with time producing complex aromas of nuts and butter, toast and cream, wild mushrooms and meadow flowers. Their structure while dry can offer great richness with a wide variety of tastes including; lemon, melon peach and apple while still imparting the same creamy, nutty, buttery notes in the wines aroma.

Chardonnays from California often have a silkiness to them with great substance of flavor combined with high alcohol levels and a ripe, fruity character.

Australian chardonnays tend to range from the rich, pollen scented, fiery Hunter Valley chardonnays to the tapered elegance of the chardonnays from Mornington Peninsula and Adelaide Hills.

"Est vieilli le meilleur" (aged is best). This is the name of the game with cabernet sauvignon. That's because the secret to cabernet sauvignon's prowess as a wine of choice is a meticulous aging process.

Cabernet sauvignon is a red wine varietal that hails from the wineries of the famed district of Medoc in Bordeaux, France. According to studies conducted in 1997, cabernet sauvignon is the result of interbreeding sauvignon blanc and cabernet franc.

A glass of young and fresh cabernet sauvignon is resplendent of black currants and is very tannic. As the precious liquid ages, it gets hints of cherries, blackberries, ceday, bell peppers, green olives, pimientos, green peppercorns, and ginger.

You may also recognize the parfums of cedar, eucalyptus, leather, a cigar box, oak, earth, and chocolate emanating from this blood-colored elixir. Further downing a shot of cabernet sauvignon causes you to identify more saveur of coconuts, vanilla, musk, smoke, sweet wood, toast, and mushrooms.

These flavors and fragrances get more pronounced as the cabernet sauvignon advances with age. Truly, est vieilli le meilleur.

A very versatile grape, cabernet sauvignon, adapts well to being planted in many different regions around the World. This grape makes the reference reds that other wines are compared to. Mixed with merlot, cabernet franc and petit verdot in the Bordeaux regions of Medoc and Graves this grape makes the archetypal red wine. A wine that exists at a peak of refinement and allusiveness which few other wines can match.

Its life span after a good vintage can extend twenty or thirty years and beyond.

In California The cabernet sauvignons possess an enormously tannic and alcoholic wine barely tamed by its oak barrels. Their grandeur is unique and affords real aging potential where the wine takes on a chocolate softness.

For sheer drinkability cabernet sauvignon from Chile is hard to beat. The plum and mulberry fruit undertones have a purity and exuberance rarely matched from cabernet sauvignons of other countries.

Please post your reviews for red wines here. I encourage everyone to participate in a lively discussion of their favorite red wines. Your review may be as formal or informal as you like. It would be great if you could also rate the wine on a 100 point scale.

If there is one thing that the region of Bordeaux is proud of, it would probably be its line of wines. For the record, Bordeaux is the largest wine-producing region in the whole world, and it would only follow that they produce the best wines available in the market today. Bordeaux is famous for its red wines, though, of course, its white varieties are doing exceptionally good as well.

Every Bordeaux wine possesses distinct quality, flavor, and taste. There are no two wines that are seemingly alike. And to come up with variations, wine makers planted and blended different vines that would collaboratively make up a unique-tasting and fine wine.

Bordeaux wines were said to have existed in the post 48 AD and were originally created for soldiers. As the years advanced, Bordeaux wines found other markets and were thereby exported, though in the earlier years wine exportation was never seen as a grand idea. Bordeaux wine industry witnessed several threats before like infestations and critical economic difficulties, but emerged from them successfully.

Cabernet Franc is one of the leading varietals of red wine produced in Bordeaux, France. Cabernet Franc has a peppery aroma and fruity flavor that is more delicate than its close relative, the Cabernet Sauvignon. Depending on the place of production and the specific wine making process, Cabernet Franc may also exude aromas of tobacco, raspberry, and cassis. It has a lower tannin level and has a distinct blueberry/raspberry flavor. Cabernet Franc is usually mixed with other varietals of wine like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. In recent times, wine producers have increasingly sold Cabernet Franc as a stand alone varietal.

Aside from the Bourdeaux region, Cabernet Franc is also produced in the Loire Valley. Other countries such as Argentina, the Balkan states, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, Romania, and South Africa also produce Cabernet Franc. Of particular interest is the ice wine made from Cabernet Franc in Canada. Ice wine is a type of dessert wine made from grapes that were frozen while still on the vine.