1.   Chardonnay is an amazingly versatile grape variety.

2.   Different grape varieties produce wines of widely different character.

3.   Each month we will take you through the major wine-producing areas of the world, highlighting the leading grape varieties.

4.   Even efforts with their best grape varieties seemed to produce wines that could never shake off a legacy of bitterness.

5.   However, different grape varieties produce wines of widely different character.

6.   Among them is a remarkable white Cotes du Rhone called Les Figuieres, which is made from two grape varieties, viognier and roussanne.

7.   As with most grape varieties, the names also apply to the wines made from them.

8.   A grape variety peculiar to Plovdiv is Mavrud, which was introduced by the Thracians and makes a red wine so thick it resembles syrup.

9.   Both white wines that day were made from sauvignon blanc and semillon, the classic Bordeaux white grape varieties.

10.   But the history of misidentified grape varieties is a long one.