I attended a party a few weeks ago in a home with a custom wine cellar. The host gave me a tour of his prized bottles and after surveying the empties asked me if the next wine should be a "blend or varietal?"

I chose 'blend' and soon found myself explaining to my fellow party goers why I love blended wines. Blends often are a more interesting bottle of wine. Unfortunately most Americans do not understand the virtues of blending complementary varieties together. Since the wine market is driven by what sells, domestic winemakers are wary of blending for fear that their creation will gather dust on the retail shelf.

Expecting every bottle of wine to contain only one kind of grape started a few decades ago, during California's early wine industry. They could not use the European model for naming wine, which uses the geographical location as the name, because California's growing regions were undefined. Instead, domestic producers used the names of established growing regions of Europe. Bottles of wine from California were called Burgundy, Chablis, Sauterne, Champagne, and even Chianti. This naming convention was confusing and soon a better method was taken up. Name the wine after the grapes. Before long producers began to feature single grape varieties and the American consumer became accustomed to shopping for wine by grape name.

Different varieties of grapes grow on different timelines. Some vines bud early and risk losing their fragile flowers to frost. Others ripen late and can be ruined by autumn rain or frost. To protect against a total loss growers cultivate several different varieties. Producers can create a masterpiece with this palate of different flavors. Each grape brings its own attributes and the resulting blend can be very synergistic. Whether the blend is simple or complex, variety in your varieties can be a very tasty venture.