The Best White Wines - Leaders of the Pack

"The Best White Wines - Leaders of the Pack"," White wines, yellow, golden or straw-like in color, are derived from an assortment of grape varietals of green, gold or yellowish-colored grapes, or from just the juice (not the skin) of select red grapes.
  White wines are often preferred with lighter meals such as lunch, smaller lighter dinners, and appetizers, or as aperitifs, with optimum serving temperatures at 45-50 degrees Fahrenheit.
 A variety of taste descriptors apply to white wine, such as citrus, apple, pear, grapefruit, lemon, lime, pineapple, melon, butter, honey, flora, herb, earthy, along with light oak vanilla, sweet wood coconut, as well as heavier oak, smoke, toast.
 Chardonnay's intrinsic blank canvas quality allows its flavors to be dramatically affected by soil, climate, vineyard practices, and winemaking techniques that produce wide variances in the Chardonnay flavor profile.
 Chardonnay is the major varietal used in quality sparkling wines and French Champagne.
 Chablis is described as flinty, mineral or "steely", versus the Meursault appellation (one of the relatively few Burgundy villages that produces almost entirely white wine) where Chardonnay is described as having a lush, ripe, "fleshy", "buttery" quality.
 Chardonnay has also been a successful grape in Australia, sometimes misnamed there "pinot chardonnay".
 Heavily oak influenced Chardonnays do not pair well with more delicate fish; they pair better with smoked fish, spicy Southeast Asian cuisine, garlic and guacamole.


Sauvignon Blanc, one of the first fine wines to be bottled with a screwcap in commercial quantities, is usually consumed young, not particularly benefiting from aging.
 Blending Sauvignon Blanc with Semillon is a common practice to add richness and an extra element of figs to the aroma, softening the Sauvignon Blanc's naturally high acidity character.
 This character pervades in even sweet and dessert versions, preventing them from being cloying and sticky-tasting.
 It pairs well with sushi, fish, and fresh goat cheese.
 Riesling is distinctively floral and exhibits apple, pear, peach, apricot-like aromas that frequently mix in mineral elements reflecting the individuality of its
terroir (a group of vineyards or even vines from the same region).
 Riesling may have aromas of green or other apples, grapefruit, peach, honey, rose blossom or cut green grass.
 Riesling makes dry, semi-sweet, sweet and sparkling white wines which pair well with white fish or pork.


Gewürztraminer is more pungent and full-bodied than most any other white wine with a heady, aromatic scent of roses, passion fruit, floral notes and exotic lychee-nut flavor with at times a heavy, oily texture and a slight tendency to bitterness that can be overwhelming and tiring to some.
 Gewürztraminer can be made into an excellent dessert wine.


Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigio can be clear in color to a light gold and can be dry or attain a high level of sweetness and even age well.
 It is a wine that is usually delicately fragrant and mildly floral along with hints of almond and smoke.


Semillon is the majority white variety in Bordeaux regions of Graves, Entre de Mers and Sauternes, and makes up the majority of the blend in the most expensive and famous dessert wines in the world.
 It is full of crisp citrus flavors with a touch of fresh herbs.
 Semillon works well when blended with Chardonnay, providing weight and richness.
 Viognier possesses a rich and complex floral aroma that often conjures up reflections of overripe apricots mixed with orange blossoms, along with a distinctive and sweet aroma-flavor profile as Gewürztraminer.
 Aromatic and fruit forward by nature of the grape, Viognier pairs well with spicy foods such as Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, and with shellfish, such as Dungeness crab.
 Considered the most versatile of all wine grape varieties, fragrant and lightly sweet and crisp, it can be used to make everything -- light sparkling wines, dry table wines, nectar-like dessert wines (where the grapes can be left on the vines to develop noble rot, producing an intense, viscous dessert wine that will improve considerably with age), and even brandy are all produced in various areas of the wine world.