New in here - and in wines

[Thomas Finn]

Me and my girlfriend have been drinking wines now for about two years, mostly reds, but we try to pick the right moments for reds and whites.

Anyhow... It wasn't until yesterday, that we got interested in the different types of wines. my questions are:

a) How many types of reds are there ? i.e Merlot

b) what's the differences between them?

Looking forward to read your comments...
Thank you

[Innkeeper]

Hi Thomas and welcome to the Wine Board. I don't want to overwhelm you, but there are hundreds, if not thousands of different red wine grapes. These are made into an almost infinite different styles of wines. A book available on the international market is Janis Robinson's "Concise Wine Companion." This is an abbreviated paperback edition of her larger reference work. It covers many of the different grapes and wines in the world of wine. Don't recommend reading it cover to cover, but you can look up Merlot for instance, and then look up another grape such as Cabernet Franc. Then you can see how she views them diffently, and since she is one of the world's formost authorities, she is usually accurate.

[Thomas Finn]

Yeah, it's pretty much what I expected...
Thank you IK anyway... This is a really neat site, by the way, I will recommend it to my friends, who I know love wines.