Wine rhymes

So it was actually fairly early in our wine-soaked evening when my friend Joe committed, and repeated what I’ll dub a Bacchian slip. We were talking about the grape of of a certain southeast-France region when he started asking, “Gamay Beaujolais: Where else do they make good gamay Beaujolais?”

The answer, of course, is “nowhere,” since Joe was smooshing together a grape and a region. If we had wanted to be forgiving of his gaffe — not our usual M.O. — I might have said that Brick House in Oregon and Duxoup in Sonoma make delicious wines from the grape known on these shores as gamay noir.

But later the word geek in me started wondering if there are other instances in which a grape and a region or appellation whare it thrives make a nice little rhyme. And in fact, there are several:

• Merlot Bordeaux
• Nebbiolo Barolo
• Chardonnay Montrachet (my personal favorite)
• Shiraz Oz (if we’re allowed to use a country’s nickname, and since I’m making the rules, we of course are)
• Trebbiano Italiano (OK, the judges are not gonna accept that one)

And … well maybe that’s it, but I’m guessing that at some point Joe will provide an addition to this list.