Wine · Terminology
Assemblage
The French term for blending — choosing the final composition of a wine from its component lots.
Assemblage is French for blending: combining separately vinified lots — different varieties, parcels, vessels or vintages — into the finished wine. The word carries more ceremony than its English equivalent, because in Bordeaux and Champagne the assemblage is the decision of the year.
It is also a moment of judgement in an unfinished state: the winemaker is tasting young, hard, incomplete components and predicting what they will become after maturation and bottle age.
In practice
- In Bordeaux, assemblage typically happens a few months after harvest: each parcel and variety is tasted, and the estate decides what goes into the grand vin, what goes into the second wine, and what is sold off in bulk.
- In Champagne, assemblage precedes the second fermentation, and non-vintage blends draw on reserve wines held back from previous years — often dozens of base wines.
- The proportions change every vintage, even for wines that taste consistent — that consistency is the assemblage's job.
Where you'll meet it
- Bordeaux and Champagne above all, plus Rhône and Chianti blends.
- On labels and back labels, as a slightly grand way of saying "blend".
- In the second-wine system: Les Forts de Latour, Pavillon Rouge, Carruades de Lafite all exist because of assemblage decisions.
The Bordeaux assemblage
Each variety is picked and fermented separately, because they ripen at different times and behave differently:
| Variety | Contributes |
|---|---|
| Cabernet Sauvignon | Structure, tannin, blackcurrant, ageing capacity |
| Merlot | Flesh, mid-palate, plum, approachability |
| Cabernet Franc | Aromatic lift, leaf and violet, freshness |
| Petit Verdot | Colour, spice, firm tannin — used in small doses |
| Malbec / Carmenère | Historically colour and body; now rare on the Left Bank |
A Left Bank blend leads with Cabernet Sauvignon on gravel soils; a Right Bank blend leads with Merlot on clay and limestone. The soil decides the blend, not the other way round.
The Champagne assemblage
Blending here spans three axes at once: variety (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier), village (up to hundreds of parcels), and year (reserve wines). A house's non-vintage style is a promise that this blend will taste the same next year, from entirely different raw material — the most demanding blending job in wine.