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.

Sauvignon Blanc's origins are from Bordeaux being one of the two parents of cabernet sauvignon.

Some of the most easily recognized white wines with fresh, zesty aromas come from the Upper Loire Region at Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume.

A consistent challenger for the sauvignon blanc crown comes from New Zealand's Marlborough Region. While these wines lack the edge of the sauvignon blanc's from the Loire they make up for it with their exuberant leafiness, green sap, gooseberry and zingy lime.

The creamy, dry Graves style is grown in warmer regions like California and Australia.

The cooler regions of South Africa, Constantia and Darling Hills, produce a crisp, elegant sauvignon blanc as do the Casablanca and San Antonio regions of Chile.

"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.

Zinfandel can be light and fruity, much like French Beaujolais, or lively, complex and age worthy, like cabernet sauvignon or claret. It can also be made into big, ripe, high alcohol style wines that almost resemble port.

Zinfandel has a very hardy nature. Adaptable to a wide range of soils and climates, its vines tend to be vigorous and productive.

Because of its vigor, generosity and resistance to vine disease, many zinfandel vineyards exist that are seventy-five to more than one hundred years old.

Zinfandel aficionados believe these "old vines" produce the best wines because the older vineyards set smaller crops and the grapes tend to ripen more evenly.

Zinfandel is one red varietal that is best enjoyed in its youth. With more bottle age the luscious fruit that distinguishes Zinfandel drops markedly and the wine can show a pronounced taste of higher alcohol levels.

When paired with grilled steaks, chops or meat that has been stewed Zinfandel becomes a prime motivation for people to become wine lovers.

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.