Weekend wine: Marques de Alarcon Tempranillo Syrah

WINE is complicated enough for many consumers to get their head around, given the number of foreign words involved, whether they be obscure wine regions or simply grape varieties. It is not surprising that the simple labelling found on the average bottle of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc or Chilean Merlot is so welcome to many of us.

To understand European wine labelling you need to learn a little geography, as almost all labels on wines from the EU refer to the place the grapes are grown. The French started all this in the 1930s when they laid out the Appellation Controlée rules for what grapes (13 different ones) could go into Chateauneuf-du-Pape, along with minimum alcohol levels and other details.

Soon similar rules were being applied to all the wine regions of France and the methodology was copied in Italy, Spain and elsewhere on the continent.