Identifying wines by location or by varietal.

Interesting article in the NY Times talking about the labelling of wine by location or by varietal: the history of each, and the strengths and drawbacks. As an oversimplification, with Old World wines, the vineyards have been around long enough that decades or centuries of experimentation have shown that pinot noir and chardonnay are the best wines grown in the region of Burgundy, so labelling a red wine as Burgundy also identifies it as pinot noir; New World vineyards are still experimenting to find out what wines they can grow best, so you can't just label a red wine as "Napa" and have much of an idea of what varietal it is.