Wine terms

A

A bitter finish

A bitter finish is a bitter taste, a little like coffee or dark chocolate, that lingers after you swallow a wine.

A bridge ingredient

A bridge is an ingredient you add to a dish because the wine already has that flavor. Mushrooms give an earthy red a way in, and dill does the same for a herbal white. It builds a shared flavor rather than hoping one is there, and the plate can still be changed when the bottle cannot.

A broken cork

A cork can break in half or crumble into the wine as it is drawn. The usual causes are a cork that has lost its elasticity with age, a worm driven off center, and force applied sideways. Fragments in the glass are a nuisance rather than information, because they say nothing about how the wine tastes.

A closed phase

A closed wine seems muted, with very little aroma or flavor showing. Tasters also call it dumb or shut down.

A cloudy wine

A cloudy wine usually has one of three causes, and two of them are harmless. The winemaker may have chosen not to filter it. Grape proteins may have clumped together after the bottle got warm. Tiny bubbles with a yeasty or sour smell mean fermentation restarted in the bottle, and that is a fault.

A condition report

A condition report is the written description a seller or auction house gives of a bottle, because nobody can taste a lot before buying it. It covers the fill level, the label, the capsule, the cork and the glass, and for a case the box as well. Each house writes its own wording and no standard sits across them.

A cork drying out

A cork that dries out can shrink and stop sealing the bottle, letting air in and wine out.

A fermentation that stops

A stuck fermentation is one where the yeast stops working before all the sugar has turned into alcohol. The wine is left sweeter than the winemaker intended.

A food friendly wine

Food-friendly is an informal term for wines that go well with many dishes, usually thanks to fresh acidity, moderate alcohol and gentle tannin.

A heat spike

A heat spike is a short run of unusually hot days during the growing season. Above a certain warmth the vine's leaf pores shut to save water, so the sugar-making that ripens fruit slows or halts and ripening can stall for days. Bunches in direct sun may also scorch, leaving sunken brown patches on the skins.

A pairing is a preference

A pairing cannot be right or wrong the way a fact can. Some of the effects are measurable: salt lowers how bitter a wine tastes, and fat and protein in food can make tannin, the drying grip, feel less drying. Whether you enjoy the result is preference, and a recommended dish is a starting point.

A passive cellar

A passive cellar is a room dug into rock or earth that holds its temperature without any refrigeration. Several metres of ground above it barely change temperature through the year, so the room stays cool and damp on its own. Steadiness is the part that matters for wine, more than hitting any particular number.

A pushed cork

A pushed cork sits slightly raised above the rim of the bottle or presses up against the foil, usually because the wine expanded when the bottle got hot.

A shop's margin

A retailer's margin is the difference between what a shop pays for a bottle and what it charges you. It has to cover rent, staff, delivery, the cost of holding stock and any bottle that never sells. Margins vary by market, by shop and by bottle, so there is no single figure.

A sulfur smell on opening

Three different sulfur smells can meet you as a bottle opens. A struck-match pungency that stings the nose is usually the added preservative, and it often fades. Rotten egg is a light sulfide from the wine itself, and swirling often disperses it. Cabbage, drains, onion or burnt rubber are heavier compounds that usually stay.

A trademark or a place

A brand name and a place name can be the same words, and wine law decides which one wins. A protected place name cannot be registered or used as a brand for wine that does not come from there, in both the European Union and the United States. Brands registered before the place was protected can sometimes continue.

A weeping capsule

A weeping capsule is a sticky stain or dried wine around the foil at the top of a bottle. It shows wine has leaked out past the cork.

Abboccato

Abboccato is an Italian label word for a lightly sweet wine, sweeter than dry but not a full dessert wine.

Acetaldehyde, fault or style

Acetaldehyde is a compound that gives wine a bruised apple or nutty smell, and it builds up when wine is exposed to air.

Acid cuts fat

Acidity is the tart, mouth-watering quality in wine, like lemon juice. Acidity cuts through fat is tasting shorthand, and what it describes is this: a high-acid wine can make a rich or fatty dish feel fresher between bites, while the food can make the acidity seem less sharp. Champagne with fried food is the classic example.

Acid falling as grapes ripen

As grapes ripen, their acidity falls, partly because the berry burns some of its own acid for energy. Keeping enough acidity is a main concern for growers in warm places.

Acidity

Acidity gives wine its tart, mouthwatering freshness, like the feeling of biting into a green apple.

Acidity and shellfish

Shellfish are naturally salty and faintly sweet, and oysters, prawns and crab are usually served with lemon or a sharp dressing. The salt in them lowers how bitter a wine tastes. The lemon habit is much older than any research into it, and the usual pour, a tart dry white, mirrors what is already on the plate.

Adding acid

Acidification means adding acid, usually tartaric acid, to grape juice or wine so it tastes fresher and keeps better.

Adding sugar before fermentation

Chaptalization means adding sugar before or during fermentation to raise a wine's potential alcohol, rather than to make it sweeter.

Aerators

An aerator is a small device wine is poured through so air mixes into the stream on its way to the glass. The aim is to do in seconds what time in a decanter does slowly. Whether a few seconds of air improves a given wine is argued rather than established.

Aged cheese and oxidative wine

Some wines are deliberately exposed to air as they age, which gives them nutty, dried-fruit character instead of fresh fruit. Long-matured hard cheeses develop nutty, savory character of their own. Putting them together works through shared flavor, helped by the cheese's salt and fat. Oloroso Sherry with aged Gouda is the usual example.

Aging

Aging is the time a wine spends maturing, either at the winery before release or in bottle afterward. Over time, fresh fruit flavors can soften into savory, dried fruit and earthy notes.

Aging in tank

Tank aging keeps a sparkling wine with its spent yeast inside one large sealed pressure tank instead of in individual bottles. The winemaker can taste the wine, adjust it and decide when to stop, which a sealed bottle does not allow. The wine is then filtered off the yeast and bottled, so the contact ends at bottling.

Alcohol

Alcohol in wine comes from fermentation, when yeast feeds on the sugar in grape juice.

Alcohol heat

Alcohol heat is a warming or burning feeling in the mouth and throat, most noticeable after you swallow.

Allergen declaration on wine

An allergen declaration is a line on a wine label, such as contains sulfites or contains milk, warning of substances some people are allergic to.

Allocation

An allocation is a limited amount of a scarce wine offered to a particular buyer. Producers, importers, distributors or merchants may divide limited supply among their customers.

Alluvial soil

Alluvial soil is material a river has carried and left behind, often mixed layers of gravel, sand, silt and clay.

Almond

Almond is a tasting note found in some white wines, often as a faintly bitter edge at the end of a sip. It can also appear as a sweeter marzipan note.

Altitude and elevation

Altitude is how high above sea level a vineyard sits. Higher vineyards are generally cooler, because air cools as it rises.

Amabile

On an Italian wine label, amabile means medium sweet.

Amarone

Amarone della Valpolicella is a full-bodied, usually dry red from northeastern Italy, made from grapes dried for months before fermentation to concentrate their sugar and flavor.

Ambient fermentation

An ambient fermentation uses no added yeast. The microbes already on the grape skins, on the picking bins and living in the cellar walls start the job themselves. Several species work in turn before one hardy yeast finishes it, so the start is slower and less certain than an inoculated tank.

American vine species

American vine species are wild grapevines native to North America. They are used mainly as roots for European wine grapes because they resist phylloxera, a root-feeding insect.

American Viticultural Areas

An American Viticultural Area, or AVA, is a grape-growing region in the United States officially recognized for its distinct growing conditions.

Amontillado Sherry

Amontillado is a dry Sherry from southern Spain that ages first under a layer of yeast and then in contact with air, turning amber and nutty.

Ampelography and vine identification

Ampelography is identifying a grape variety by looking closely at the vine, especially its leaves, shoots, bunches and berries.

An auction estimate

An auction estimate is a low and a high figure the house publishes for a lot before the sale. Its job is to tell bidders roughly where the house expects bidding to go, and to give the seller's reserve a reference point. It is the house's own opinion, not a valuation and not a forecast.

Ancestral method

The ancestral method makes sparkling wine by bottling it before its first fermentation has finished, so the bubbles are trapped inside. Labels often call it pétillant naturel, or pet nat.

Annata

Annata means vintage year in Italian. In Chianti Classico, it names the standard wine, released younger than the Riserva.

AOC

AOC stands for Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée, France's system of protected wine names. A wine labeled with one comes from a defined area and follows that area's rules.

Appellation

An appellation is a legally defined wine-growing area. Names such as Champagne, Chablis and Napa Valley tell you something about where a wine comes from.

Approachable

Approachable describes a wine that is ready to drink now, with tannin and acidity that do not dominate.

Aroma families

An aroma family is a broad group of similar smells, such as citrus fruit, stone fruit, flowers, herbs or oak.

Aroma versus flavor

Much of what we experience as flavor comes from smell. Your tongue detects basic tastes, while your nose helps recognize aromas such as cherry, vanilla or flowers.

Aromatic and neutral varieties

Aromatic grapes, such as Muscat and Gewürztraminer, have strong smells of their own. Neutral grapes, such as Pinot Grigio, smell milder, so the place and the winemaking show more.

Aromatic intensity

An aromatic wine has a strong smell you notice as soon as you lift the glass, often of flowers, peach or lychee.

Aromatic lift

Aromatic lift describes the sense that a wine's smell rises easily from the glass and feels bright and fresh rather than heavy.

Aspect and slope

Aspect is the direction a vineyard faces, and slope is how steeply it tilts. Both change how much sun and warmth the vines get.

Assemblage

Assemblage is French for blending: combining wines from different grapes, vineyards or barrels into one final wine.

Astringency and drying

Astringency is the drying, puckering feeling in your mouth after a sip of red wine or strong black tea.

Aszú and puttonyos

Aszú berries from Tokaj, Hungary, are shriveled by noble rot, a helpful mold that concentrates their sugar. Puttonyos is now optional on labels; 6 puttonyos still means at least 150 grams of residual sugar per liter.

Austria's DAC system

DAC stands for Districtus Austriae Controllatus. On an Austrian label, it means the wine follows its region's rules for which grapes are used and what style the wine should be.

Azienda agricola

Azienda agricola is Italian for farm business, and on a wine label it usually means a producer that grows its own grapes.

Añada

Añada is Spanish for vintage, the year the grapes were harvested. A Spanish label may print it beside the year.

B

Back vintage

A back vintage is an older year of a wine offered after newer vintages have been released.

Backward

A backward wine tastes firm and quiet when young, with fruit that seems held back.

Bag in box and other formats

A bag in box holds wine in a plastic bag inside a cardboard box, poured through a tap. Once opened, it keeps for weeks rather than days.

Balance

A balanced wine is one where acidity, sweetness, tannin, alcohol and flavor work well together, without one element overwhelming the others.

Balsamic note

In wine tasting, balsamic describes resinous, cooling aromas such as pine, eucalyptus, menthol or camphor.

Barrel

A barrel is a wooden container, usually made of oak, used to ferment or age wine.

Barrel toast

Barrel toast is how much the inside of an oak barrel was heated over a fire when the barrel was made.

Basket press

A basket press is an upright cage with slatted sides. A plate pushes down on the grapes from above, squeezing the juice out between the slats.

Bead

Bead is the tasting word for the streams of bubbles rising through a glass of sparkling wine.

Benchmark

A benchmark is a wine that others of its grape or region are measured against.

Berry shrivel

Berry shrivel is when grapes lose water on the vine, so the berries wrinkle and soften.

Berry size

Berry size is how big each individual grape is. It varies with the grape variety and growing conditions, including the vine's water supply.

Bianco

Bianco is Italian for white. On a label it tells you the bottle is a white wine.

Bidding increments

Bidding increments are the fixed steps a bid rises in during an auction. The house sets them in advance, usually larger steps as the figure gets higher, and the auctioneer will not take a bid in between. They keep the sale moving and make it clear what has actually been bid.

Biodiversity in a vineyard

Vineyard biodiversity means the range of living things in and around the rows: plants between the vines, hedges and trees at the edges, insects, birds and the life in the soil. Growers encourage it by leaving plant cover, keeping scrub and woodland nearby and cutting back on sprays. The aim is a vineyard where natural predators help hold pests down.

Biodynamic

Biodynamic farming builds on organic practices and adds special preparations and a farming calendar.

Biotypes within a variety

A biotype is a recognized subtype within one grape variety, with vines or bunches that look consistently different, such as larger or smaller berries.

Bitterness and fat

Fat on the plate makes bitterness and the drying grip of a red both seem gentler. In sensory testing, people who took a spoonful of oil before tasting a tannin solution found it less drying. So a bitter wine beside charred vegetables is a harder pair than the same wine beside something buttery.

Black pepper and rotundone

A peppery note in wine smells like cracked black or white pepper, and it comes mainly from rotundone, the same compound that makes peppercorns smell peppery.

Blanc

Blanc is French for white. On a French label, it tells you the bottle holds white wine.

Blanc de blancs

Blanc de blancs is French for white from whites: a wine made only from white grapes.

Blanc de Meunier

Blanc de Meunier is a pale sparkling wine, usually Champagne, made only from Meunier, a dark-skinned grape whose juice is pressed off before it picks up color.

Blanc de noirs

Blanc de noirs means white from black: a pale wine, usually sparkling, made only from dark-skinned grapes.

Blanco

Blanco is Spanish for white. On a Spanish label it tells you the bottle holds white wine.

Bleeding off juice

Saignée means draining off some pink juice from a tank of crushed red grapes early in winemaking. That juice is fermented separately and becomes a rosé.

Blending partner

A blending partner is a grape mixed with another to add something the main grape lacks, such as softness, color, aroma or freshness.

Blending trials

Blending trials are tastings where a winemaker mixes small samples of separate batches in different proportions to decide the final blend.

Blends and single varietals

A varietal wine is labeled with one main grape, such as Pinot Noir. A blend combines two or more grape varieties to make the finished wine.

Blind tasting as a method

Tasting blind means tasting a wine without seeing its label, so your judgment comes from the glass rather than from the name or the price.

Blue cheese and sweet wine

A sweet white with blue cheese is the pairing usually offered as proof that contrast works. The cheese is very salty, strong and fatty, and the wine carries high sugar and high acidity, so neither side is quiet. Salt lowering how bitter a wine tastes is the documented part, and the match itself is a convention.

Blush

Blush is an American name for pink wine. It often signals a pale, slightly sweet style, such as White Zinfandel.

Bodega

Bodega is the Spanish word for a winery, or for a building where wine is made, aged or stored.

Body

Body is how light or heavy wine feels in your mouth, similar to the difference between skim milk and cream.

Bordeaux blend

A Bordeaux blend is a red wine made from the grapes grown in Bordeaux, France, mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, usually with two or more combined.

Bottle age and barrel age

Barrel age is the time a wine spends in oak barrels before bottling, and bottle age is the time it spends sealed in glass afterward.

Bottle shock

Bottle shock is a wine trade term for a wine that seems muted for a while after bottling. It describes a reported impression rather than a clearly measured effect.

Bottle variation

Bottle variation means two bottles of the same wine can taste slightly different. Small differences in the cork, storage and handling add up over time.

Bottled by and produced by

On a United States wine label, the phrase before the winery's name, such as produced and bottled by, tells you how much of the winemaking that company did.

Bottles stored on their side

Steady, cool, dark storage comes first, and lying a bottle down is the next question. On its side the wine sits against the cork, which is the traditional reason given. Measurements of air entering sealed bottles found no significant difference by position, and the Champagne trade body accepts either. So treat it as convention.

Bottling

In wine writing, a bottling is one particular wine a producer releases, such as a single-vineyard wine kept apart from the rest of the range.

Bourgogne Côte d'Or

Bourgogne Côte d'Or on a label means a red or white Burgundy made from grapes grown in parts of 40 villages along the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits.

Bracing

Bracing describes acidity strong enough to feel sharp and very mouthwatering, like biting into a lemon.

Brambly

Brambly often describes blackberry aromas with a leafy or spicy edge, like ripe fruit picked straight from a wild bush.

Brettanomyces, fault or style

Brettanomyces, often called Brett, is a yeast that can grow in wine and give it smells of farmyard, leather, smoked meat or adhesive bandages.

Brioche

Brioche describes an aroma of buttery, freshly baked bread in some sparkling and white wines.

Brix

Brix is a measure of how much sugar is in grape juice. Growers use it to decide when grapes are ripe enough to pick.

Broad

Broad is a tasting word for a wine that spreads across your mouth with a wide, rounded feel rather than a narrow, crisp one.

Brooding

Brooding describes a dark, dense red wine whose fruit aromas and flavors seem restrained.

Brut

Brut on a sparkling wine label means the wine is dry, with only a small amount of sugar.

Brut, extra dry and the rest

Terms such as Brut and Extra Dry on a sparkling wine label tell you its sugar level. Dosage is wine and sugar that may be added before corking.

Bual

Bual, also spelled Boal, is a traditional Madeira grape name and a label term associated with medium-sweet Madeira.

Bud fertility

Bud fertility is how many grape bunches a bud will produce when it grows into a shoot the next spring.

Budbreak timing

Budbreak is when a vine's buds open in spring, and some grape varieties do this earlier than others.

Bulk wine and bottling at destination

Bulk wine is wine shipped in large tanks or bags rather than in bottles, often bottled in the country where it will be sold.

Burgundian

Calling a wine Burgundian means it reminds the taster of the wines of Burgundy, in France. For a red, that usually suggests a lighter, perfumed wine with red fruit and a gentle drying feeling from tannin.

Bush vines

A bush vine is a free-standing vine trained on a short trunk, with no wires or trellis holding it up. Gobelet and alberello are French and Italian names for this style.

Buttery

Buttery describes a wine with an aroma or flavor that resembles melted butter.

Buyer's premium

A buyer's premium is a fee an auction house adds on top of the winning bid, so you pay more than the hammer price.

Buying at auction

Wine auctions sell bottles through competing bids, with the highest accepted bid setting the sale price.

C

Cabernet Sauvignon, by structure

Cabernet Sauvignon is a red grape with small berries and thick skins, so there is a lot of skin for the amount of juice. That gives plenty of potential color and tannin, the drying grip of a red, though the winemaking decides how much is actually drawn out. Body runs medium to full. Bordeaux and Napa Valley are the reference styles.

Cahier des charges

Cahier des charges is the French name for an appellation's official rulebook. It sets out what a wine must meet to carry that appellation's name on its label.

Candied fruit

Candied fruit describes aromas and flavors that remind you of fruit cooked or preserved in sugar, such as candied orange peel or glacé cherries.

Canopy management

Canopy management is the work a grower does on a vine's shoots and leaves to control how much sun and air reach the grapes.

Cantina

On an Italian label, cantina means a winery or wine cellar, the place where wine is made and aged.

Carbonic maceration

Carbonic maceration is a method where whole grapes begin fermenting inside their skins, often producing very fruity red wines with gentle tannin.

Cask size

Cask size is how much wine a wooden barrel holds. The bigger the cask, the less wood each liter of wine touches, so the wine usually tastes less of oak.

Cassis

Cassis is French for blackcurrant, a small, dark, tart berry. In tasting notes, it describes an aroma like blackcurrant.

Cedar

Cedar describes a dry, woody aroma like pencil shavings or a cedar chest.

Cellar temperature

Cellar temperature means keeping wine somewhere steady, cool and dark. Wine matures through slow chemical reactions, and heat makes them run faster, so a bottle in a warm cupboard can taste older than the same wine kept cool. Guides commonly suggest 10 to 15 °C, and holding one temperature matters more than hitting an exact number.

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white rock formed from the shells of tiny sea creatures, and many of Champagne's vineyards sit on it.

Chambré

Chambré means letting a bottle of wine come to a suitable serving temperature in a temperate room.

Champagne producer codes

A two-letter code on a Champagne label identifies the producer's business category, such as a house, grower, cooperative or buyer's brand.

Champagne versus Prosecco

Champagne and Prosecco are both sparkling wines whose bubbles are made in different vessels. Champagne ferments a second time inside the bottle it is sold in, then rests a long time on the dead yeast cells left behind. Prosecco ferments a second time in a sealed tank and is bottled soon after. That difference helps explain the two styles.

Charcuterie and acidity

Cured meat is salty and fatty, and the wines usually poured with it are tart rather than firmly tannic. The salt has a measured effect, lowering how bitter a wine seems, and the fat can make the drying grip of a red feel gentler. Acidity is credited with refreshing between mouthfuls, which is trade shorthand.

Chardonnay, by structure

Chardonnay is less overtly aromatic than grapes such as Sauvignon Blanc or Muscat, so where it grew and what the cellar did show through more clearly. Climate strongly influences its acidity and body, and oak barrels or time on spent yeast cells can add toast and texture. Chablis is the classic cool-climate example.

Chewy tannin

Chewy is a tasting word for a red wine whose tannin feels so dense that your mouth seems to have something to chew. Tannin is the drying feeling you also get from strong black tea.

Chili heat and aromatic spice

Spicy means two unrelated things. One is burning heat from chili, which is a physical irritation rather than a taste. The other is aromatic warmth from cinnamon, clove or cardamom, which does not burn and often reads as sweet while adding no sugar. They suit different wines, so the word alone is not useful advice.

Chilling in an ice bucket

An ice bucket chills a bottle fastest when it holds cold water as well as ice, because water meets the whole surface of the glass while ice touches only a few points. The Champagne trade body gives twenty to thirty minutes for a sparkling bottle. Cold wine also holds its fizz better.

Chiseled

A chiseled wine has clearly defined flavors and lively acidity, giving it a precise, focused feel rather than a rich, rounded one.

Chocolate and mocha

Chocolate, cocoa, mocha and espresso are aromas some red wines have that remind people of chocolate or roasted coffee.

Choosing the dosage

A dosage trial is a tasting a producer runs to choose how sweet a sparkling wine will be. A few bottles are disgorged and topped up at different sugar levels, then tasted side by side. The chosen level is applied to the rest of the batch. Bone dry and lightly sweetened versions of one wine can taste very different.

Choosing the picking date

The picking date is the day a grower chooses to harvest, balancing rising sugar against falling acidity and the ripeness of flavor and tannin.

Château

In wine, a château is an estate with its own vineyards, a name used most often in Bordeaux.

Citrus notes

Citrus notes are smells and flavors in wine that remind you of lemon, lime, grapefruit or orange.

Citrus zest

Citrus zest describes aromas that remind you of the outer peel of a lemon, lime or orange, the fragrant, slightly bitter oil you smell when you grate or twist it.

Clairet

Clairet is a Bordeaux wine darker than rosé but lighter than a typical red. The juice stays in contact with the grape skins longer than for rosé.

Claret

Claret is the traditional British name for red Bordeaux.

Clarity

Clarity describes whether a wine looks clear or hazy in the glass. A clear wine has no visible haze; a cloudy one looks murky.

Clay soils

Clay soil contains a high proportion of the smallest mineral particles. Its fine texture usually holds water well and drains slowly.

Clay vessels

Clay vessels are clay containers used to ferment or age wine instead of wood barrels or steel tanks. Labels may say amphora, qvevri, talha or tinaja.

Clean

A clean wine smells and tastes free of faults, with no musty, vinegary or other off aromas.

Climate drives style

Climate here means how warm a vineyard's growing season is, which shapes how ripe the grapes get.

Clonal trials

A clonal trial plants several clones of one grape side by side on the same site, then measures them over several seasons. Clones are vines multiplied from a single selected plant. The trial records how each one crops and when it ripens, so a grower can choose on evidence rather than reputation. Results belong to that site.

Clones and clonal selection

A clone is a group of vines propagated by cuttings from one selected parent vine, so the plants share the same genetic source.

Clos

Clos is French for an enclosed vineyard, traditionally one surrounded by stone walls.

Closure and aging

A closure is whatever seals a wine bottle, such as a cork or a screwcap. Each type lets a different, small amount of air reach the wine over time.

Co-fermenting two varieties

Co-fermentation means fermenting two or more grape varieties together in one tank, instead of making them separately and blending the wines later.

Coastal vineyards

Coastal vineyards are close enough to an ocean or large sea for it to shape their weather. Near a cold ocean, breezes and fog can cool vineyards, slowing ripening and helping grapes hold acidity.

Col fondo

Col fondo, Italian for with the sediment, is Prosecco that gets its bubbles from a second fermentation in the bottle and keeps the yeast sediment inside.

Cold soak

A cold soak means keeping crushed red grapes chilled for a day or more before fermentation starts, so the skins soak in cold juice.

Cold stabilization

Cold stabilization means chilling wine before bottling so potassium and tartaric acid form harmless tartrate crystals in the tank instead of later in the bottle.

Colheita Port

A Colheita is a Port from a single harvest year that ages in wood for at least seven years before bottling. Colheita is Portuguese for harvest.

Colli

Colli is Italian for hills. In a wine name, it points to a place named for its hills, as in Friuli Colli Orientali, the eastern hills of Friuli.

Color in an aging red

Garnet is a deep red with a slight orange cast. Bricking is the orange-brown color that can appear at a red wine's rim as it ages.

Color in an aging white

Gold and amber are color words for white wine, which usually darkens with age from lemon green to lemon, then gold, then amber.

Color intensity

Color intensity is how deep or pale a wine looks in the glass, from pale and see-through to dark and inky.

Color mutation

A color mutation is a natural change that gives a grape variety a different skin color while keeping the rest of the vine the same.

Commune

A commune is a French village or town together with the land around it. In wine, a commune name such as Pauillac or Gevrey-Chambertin often doubles as an appellation.

Competition medals

A competition medal is an award a wine won at a judged wine show, often printed on a sticker on the bottle.

Complexity

Complexity describes a wine with several different aromas, flavors and sensations to notice, rather than one main impression.

Concentrating the juice

Must concentration takes water out of grape juice before fermentation, so the sugar and flavor left behind are more concentrated. Must is the winemaker's word for unfermented juice.

Concentration

Concentration is how intense a wine's flavor is. A concentrated wine gives a strong impression of flavor, even from a small sip.

Concrete

Concrete tanks are vessels for fermenting and aging wine, ranging from large square vats to egg-shaped tanks.

Contains sulfites

The sulfite statement is the line reading contains sulfites. It is triggered by a threshold rather than by a choice: both the United States and the European Union set the trigger near 10 milligrams per litre. Fermentation alone can reach that, so nearly every bottle carries the words, organic wine included.

Continental climate

A continental climate has hot summers and cold winters, with a big temperature swing between them, usually in places far from the sea.

Contract winemaking and custom crush

Contract winemaking, or custom crush, means a brand's wine is made at another company's winery, using that winery's equipment.

Contrast and echo

There are two ways to match wine with food. Contrast sets something fresh against something rich, such as a tart wine beside a creamy dish. Echo repeats what the dish already has, such as a smoky wine beside grilled meat. Both are useful starting points rather than rules.

Converting to organic

Organic conversion is the time between a grower starting to farm by the organic rules and being allowed to print the word on a label. An inspector has to see the land farmed that way for a set period first, so a vineyard can be organic in practice for years before a label may say so. The length and the rules differ by country.

Cooked and fresh fruit

Fresh fruit and cooked fruit describe two ways a wine's fruit can smell and taste. Fresh is like just-picked cherries; cooked, stewed or baked is closer to jam or fruit pie.

Cooling a fermenting tank

Fermentation gives off heat. A tank left to itself gets steadily warmer as the yeast works, and can run hot enough to kill the yeast or drive the aromas off. Temperature control means taking that heat back out, usually by running cold liquid through a jacket welded onto the tank wall.

Cooperatives on a label

A cooperative is a shared winery owned by many growers, who bring their grapes to it to be made into wine. Its wine usually blends fruit from many members' vineyards.

Cork grades

Corks are sorted into grades before they are sold. The sorting is mostly about appearance: how many of the natural pores and cracks in the bark show on the surface, judged by eye or by camera. A cleaner-looking cork costs more, and the top grades usually go to bottles meant to be kept.

Corked wine

A corked wine has a fault called cork taint that makes it smell musty, like wet cardboard or a damp cellar.

Coteaux

Coteaux is French for hillsides. On a wine label, it usually appears as part of an appellation or place name.

Coulure and millerandage

Coulure and millerandage are problems at flowering, usually in cold or wet weather, that leave grape bunches with missing or uneven berries.

Counterfeit bottles

A counterfeit bottle is a wine sold as something it is not, usually a rare and expensive bottle from a famous estate.

Cover crops

Cover crops are plants such as grasses and clover grown between the vine rows instead of leaving the soil bare.

Cream Sherry

Cream Sherry is a sweet Sherry made by blending a dry Sherry, usually Oloroso, with a sweet wine such as Pedro Ximénez.

Creamy texture

Creamy describes a soft, rich texture in your mouth.

Crianza and Gran Reserva

Crianza and Gran Reserva are Spanish terms for how long a wine aged before release. Crianza is the shortest of these aged levels, Reserva comes next and Gran Reserva is the longest.

Crossings within one species

A crossing is a grape variety created from two parent vines of the same species, usually two European wine grapes.

Cru Bourgeois du Médoc

Cru Bourgeois du Médoc is a ranking of wine estates in the Médoc area of Bordeaux. It has three tiers: Cru Bourgeois, Cru Bourgeois Supérieur and, at the top, Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel.

Cru means different things

Cru is a French word for a recognized vineyard, village or estate, and what it ranks changes from region to region.

Crunchy

Crunchy describes fresh, just-ripe fruit flavor with lively acidity, like biting into a firm raspberry or red currant.

Crusted Port

Crusted Port is a ruby-style blend from different harvests that ages in bottle for at least three years and forms a deposit called a crust.

Crystalline

Crystalline describes a wine whose flavors feel clear, pure and sharply defined, with nothing blurring them.

Crémant

Crémant is sparkling wine, mostly from French regions outside Champagne, whose bubbles come from a second fermentation inside the bottle, the same method Champagne uses.

Cult wine

Cult wine is an informal term for a wine made in small amounts with far more buyers than bottles.

Cultured and wild yeast

Yeast is what turns grape sugar into alcohol. A winemaker can add a chosen yeast, or let wild yeast already on the grapes and in the cellar do the work.

Cuvée

Cuvée is French for a particular blend or batch of wine, and producers use it on labels to name one wine in their range.

Côte

Côte is French for slope or hillside. In wine names it usually points to a stretch of vineyard land along a ridge or river valley.

D

Dark fruit and red fruit

Red fruit and dark fruit are two groups of tasting words. Red fruit means cherry, raspberry or strawberry, and dark fruit means blackberry, blackcurrant or plum.

Decanter shapes

A decanter is a glass vessel wine is poured into, and the shapes run from a tall narrow jug to a wide flat bowl. A wider base spreads the wine thinly, so more of its surface meets the air. How much the shape itself changes a wine is argued rather than settled.

Decanting

Decanting means pouring wine into another container before serving. It can help separate sediment from older wines or expose a wine to air.

Declaring a vintage

In Port, declaring a vintage means a house decides a year was good enough to make a Vintage Port. Each house decides for itself, so some years pass without one.

Delicate

Delicate describes a wine whose aromas and flavors are light and subtle rather than bold, usually with a light body.

Demeter certification

Demeter is a certification for biodynamic farming, an approach that builds on organic farming. It treats the vineyard as one living system, uses special preparations on soil and vines, and times work by a calendar.

Demi-sec

Demi-sec is French for half-dry. It tells you a wine has some sweetness, though the exact range depends on the wine style.

Denomination

A denomination is an officially protected wine name, usually tied to a defined place and its rules. It is the word Italy and Spain use where France says appellation.

Dense

Dense describes a wine, usually red, whose fruit and tannin feel concentrated and tightly packed.

Depth

Depth is a tasting word for a wine whose flavor seems to have layers, rather than arriving all at once.

Designation

On a wine label, a designation is a name or category used to identify the wine, such as its protected place name or a late-harvest term.

Dessert wine

Dessert wine is a broad name for a sweet wine served with dessert or after a meal.

Diacetyl and buttery character

Diacetyl is the compound that gives some wines a buttery smell. It is the same compound that makes butter smell like butter.

Dijon clones

Dijon clones are particular selections of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines from Burgundy, planted widely in Oregon and California since the 1980s.

Direct press

Direct pressing means grapes are pressed soon after picking, so the juice spends very little time with the skins. It is a common way to make pale rosé.

Direct to consumer shipping

Direct to consumer, or DTC, means a winery ships wine straight to the buyer, with no shop or distributor in between.

Disciplinare

A disciplinare is the official rulebook for an Italian DOC or DOCG wine. It sets where the grapes may grow, which grapes are allowed and how the wine is made.

Disease pressure

Disease pressure is how likely a vineyard is to suffer vine diseases, especially fungal ones like mildew, in a given place and year.

Disease resistant varieties

Disease-resistant varieties are grapes bred to withstand mildew diseases, so growers can reduce vineyard sprays.

Dissolved oxygen

Oxygen does not only sit in the gap under a cork. It dissolves into the wine itself, invisibly, every time the liquid is pumped, racked, filtered or filled into a bottle. The wine then uses it up slowly over months, and a large amount taken in at bottling can push a wine toward browning early.

Distributor and wholesaler

A distributor, also called a wholesaler, buys wine from producers or importers and sells it to shops, bars and restaurants.

Diurnal temperature shift

Diurnal shift is the difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures where grapes grow.

DNA parentage testing

DNA parentage testing identifies a grape variety by reading its genes rather than by looking at the plant. It can also reveal which two grapes were a variety's parents.

DO and DOCa

DO and DOCa are Spain's two main legal categories for wines named after a place. DOCa is the higher of the two.

DOC and DOCG

DOC and DOCG are Italy's two main legal categories for wines named after a place. DOCG is the stricter of the two.

Dolce

Dolce is Italian for sweet. On an Italian still-wine label, it marks the sweetest category, with at least 45 grams of sugar per liter.

Domaine

Domaine is French for a wine estate. On a French label, it usually means the producer grew the grapes on its own vineyards and made the wine itself.

Double decanting

Double decanting means pouring a wine out of its bottle into a decanter, rinsing the bottle, then pouring the wine back in. The point is to leave the deposit behind and still serve from the original bottle, which carries the label. Restaurants use it so a guest sees what they ordered.

Doux

Doux is French for sweet. On a French wine label it marks a wine with a high level of sugar, so it tastes clearly sweet.

Downy and powdery mildew

Mildew is the name for two separate vine diseases, downy and powdery mildew, that attack leaves and grapes and reduce the crop.

Dried fruit

Dried fruit describes aromas of raisins, figs, prunes or dates in wine.

Drinking window

A drinking window is a reviewer's estimate of the years when a wine is likely to be enjoyable to drink, written as a pair of years or simply as drink now.

Dry

A dry wine has little or no sugar left after fermentation, so it doesn't taste noticeably sweet.

Dry farming

Dry farming means growing established grapevines without irrigation during the growing season, relying on rain stored in the soil.

Dry to sweet is a scale

Dry wine has little or no noticeable sweetness. Sweeter wine contains more sugar left after fermentation, often called residual sugar.

Dulce

Dulce means sweet in Spanish and Romanian. On a still-wine label in the European Union, it marks the sweet category, with at least 45 grams of sugar per liter.

Dusty

Dusty tannins feel fine and dry, like a light film of cocoa powder on your tongue and gums.

Duty and tax on a bottle

In countries that charge it, alcohol duty is a tax on wine that can be included in the bottle's price.

Dűlő

Dűlő is the Hungarian word for a named vineyard site, so a dűlő name on a label names the single vineyard the grapes came from.

E

Early and late ripening

Grape varieties ripen on different schedules. Early-ripening grapes are ready sooner, while late-ripening grapes need more time before harvest.

Earthy

Earthy describes aromas that recall damp soil, forest floor, dried leaves or mushrooms.

Egg yolk

Runny egg yolk is awkward with wine. It is high in fat and in sulfur compounds, and it coats your mouth so that whatever follows reads as dulled. Service practice reaches for tart whites, sparkling wine or a light red, and treats heavily oaked styles as unhelpful. The difficulty has never been measured.

Eiswein and icewine

Eiswein and icewine are sweet wines made from grapes that freeze naturally on the vine and are pressed while still frozen.

Electric

Electric acidity describes acidity so bright and vivid that the wine seems to tingle across your tongue and makes your mouth water.

Elegant and refined

Elegant and refined are often used when a wine feels balanced, with no single part, such as acidity, tannin, alcohol or fruit, standing out.

En primeur and futures

En primeur, called futures in the United States, means buying wine while it is still aging in barrel, before it is bottled.

En rama

En rama, literally Spanish for on the branch, describes Sherry bottled after only light filtering, to keep it close to how it tasted in the cask.

Estate

An estate is a wine property that grows grapes. Estate wine or estate-grown usually suggests that the grapes came from the producer's vineyards, but only Estate Bottled has a strict federal definition in the United States.

Estufagem and canteiro

Estufagem and canteiro are the two ways Madeira, a fortified wine from the Portuguese island of Madeira, is aged: estufagem heats wine in tanks, while canteiro ages it slowly in casks in warm rooms.

Ethereal

Ethereal describes a wine that feels light and delicate, with aromas that seem lifted rather than heavy.

Ethyl acetate

Ethyl acetate is the compound that can make a wine smell like nail polish remover or sweet pear candy.

EU ingredients and nutrition

Wine produced on or after December 8, 2023 and sold in the European Union must list its ingredients and give nutrition information, either on the label or through a QR code called an e-label.

EU mandatory label items

In the European Union, certain facts must appear on every wine label, including the alcohol strength, the volume, who bottled it and allergens such as sulfites.

EU protected designations

In the European Union, PDO and PGI are protected place names on a wine label. PDO has stricter rules, while PGI covers wider areas with more freedom.

Ex cellar

Ex cellar means the price of a wine while it is still at the producer, before shipping, insurance and taxes are added.

Expression

Expression describes how a grape, place or style shows itself in a particular wine.

Extraction from skins and seeds

Extraction is how much color, flavor and tannin a winemaker draws out of the grape skins and seeds. Tannin is the drying feeling a red wine leaves in your mouth.

Exuberant

Exuberant describes a wine whose fruit aromas and flavors come through vividly and generously, so you notice them right away.

F

Fading fruit

Fading fruit describes an older wine whose fruit aromas and flavors have grown faint.

Federspiel

Federspiel is the middle of three Vinea Wachau styles for dry wine in Austria, between Steinfeder and Smaragd.

Fermentation temperature

Fermentation temperature is how warm the juice is kept while yeast turns its sugar into alcohol.

Fermenting in barrel

Barrel fermentation means the juice ferments inside oak barrels, rather than fermenting in a tank and moving into wood afterward.

Field blend

A field blend comes from a vineyard planted with several grape varieties together. They are often harvested and fermented together, though this is not required.

Filtration grades

Filtering pushes wine through a barrier that holds particles back, and the barriers come in a range from coarse to very fine. A coarse one catches visible cloudiness. A finer one holds back yeast cells. The finest holds back bacteria, which is the only grade that leaves nothing living in the bottle.

Fine grained and coarse tannin

Grain describes how smooth or rough the drying feel of tannin is. Fine-grained tannin feels smooth, like silk; coarse tannin feels rougher, like sand.

Finesse

Finesse describes a wine whose flavors feel clear and whose texture feels fine rather than coarse or heavy.

Fining agents

Fining means adding something to a cloudy or harsh young wine that grabs onto the trouble and sinks with it. The agents are ordinary materials: egg white, casein from milk, isinglass from fish bladders, and bentonite, a clay. They are taken out again afterwards, but which one was used is what decides whether a wine is vegan.

Finish

The finish is how long a wine's flavors and other sensations remain after you swallow or spit it out.

Fino Sherry

Fino is a pale, bone dry Sherry from southern Spain, aged under a layer of living yeast called flor that keeps air away from the wine.

Firm

Firm describes a wine with clearly felt tannins that give it a defined, gripping feel.

First growth

First growth is the top rank for red wine estates in Bordeaux's 1855 classification. Five châteaux hold it: Haut-Brion, Lafite Rothschild, Latour, Margaux and Mouton Rothschild.

Flabby and soft

Flabby describes a wine with too little acidity, the tart quality that makes your mouth water, so it feels soft and heavy rather than fresh.

Flagship wine

A flagship wine is the bottling a producer puts forward to represent the estate, often the one most closely tied to its reputation.

Flinty

Flinty describes a smell in some white wines like a struck match or the sparks from striking stone.

Flor and biological aging

Flor is a film of living yeast that grows on the surface of some Sherry in cask, protecting it from air.

Floral character

Floral describes a wine that smells of flowers, such as rose, violet, orange blossom or white flowers like jasmine and acacia.

Flowering and fruit set

Flowering is when the vine blooms in late spring, and fruit set is when those flowers become tiny grapes.

Flutes, coupes and tulips

Flutes, coupes and tulips are three glass shapes for sparkling wine. A flute is tall and narrow, a coupe is a shallow saucer, and a tulip has a wider bowl that narrows at the rim.

Flying and consulting winemakers

A flying winemaker travels between wineries or regions to make wine or advise local teams, sometimes working in different countries.

Fog

Fog is a low cloud at ground level. In coastal vineyards, it can block sunlight and cool the air, slowing ripening and helping grapes hold acidity.

Foot treading

Foot treading is crushing grapes by stepping on them, usually in a wide, shallow stone tank called a lagar.

Fortified wine

Fortified wine has grape spirit, a strong distilled alcohol, added to it, which raises its alcohol level.

Fragrant

A fragrant wine gives off strong, easy-to-notice aromas the moment you bring the glass to your nose, often of flowers, fruit or spice.

Frasqueira

Frasqueira is Madeira from a single harvest year, aged in cask for at least 20 years before bottling. The label shows the vintage and usually the grape.

Free run juice

Free run juice is the juice that flows out of crushed grapes under their own weight, before the grapes are pressed.

Fresh and crisp

Fresh and crisp describe wines with lively acidity, the mouthwatering quality you recognize in lemon or green apple.

Frizzante and spumante

Spumante is Italian for fully sparkling wine, and frizzante means lightly sparkling, with a gentle prickle rather than a lasting foam.

Frost in the vineyard

Spring frost is cold that can kill a vine's new shoots, including the tiny grape clusters they carry.

Fruit purity

Fruit purity describes fruit flavors that come through clear and distinct, without other notes such as heavy oak or cooked character covering them.

Fruity

A fruity wine smells and tastes strongly of fruit, such as cherry, berries or peach.

Fynbos

Fynbos is the wild shrubland of South Africa's Western Cape. In tasting notes, it describes herbal, pine-like and dried-herb aromas that remind a taster of this vegetation.

G

Garage wine

Garage wine originally meant a tiny-production red Bordeaux made by an independent producer, sometimes in a space as modest as a garage. Such producers are called garagistes.

Garrafeira

On a Portuguese wine label, Garrafeira identifies a vintage-dated wine that meets minimum aging rules. Reds age at least 30 months, including 12 in bottle; whites and rosés age at least 12 months, including 6 in bottle.

Garrigue

Garrigue is the wild scrub of thyme, rosemary, lavender and other herbs that grows on dry hillsides in southern France. In wine, it names an aroma of those sun-warmed herbs.

Generous

Tasters call a wine generous when its ripe, open fruit flavors are plentiful and easy to notice from the first sip.

Geographical Indication

A Geographical Indication, or GI, is a legally recognized place name used to identify a wine's origin, such as Barossa Valley.

Geranium note

A geranium note is a smell like crushed geranium leaves, and it is a wine fault.

German quality levels

German wine labels may use four legal categories: Deutscher Wein, Landwein, Qualitätswein and Prädikatswein. From the 2026 vintage, the system gives greater weight to geographic origin.

Glou-glou and vin de soif

Glou-glou is French slang, imitating the sound of gulping, for a light, easy wine meant to be drunk freely rather than studied.

Grams per liter

Grams per liter, written g/L, is how much of something a liter of wine contains. Wine writing uses it mostly for sugar left after fermentation, and sometimes for acidity.

Gran Selezione

Gran Selezione is the top category of Chianti Classico, made from grapes the estate itself farms and aged at least 30 months, six months longer than Riserva.

Grand Cru by region

Grand cru is a top French classification, and what it ranks depends on the region.

Granite soils

Granite is a hard, speckled rock that weathers into a coarse, sandy soil that drains quickly.

Grape seeds

Grape seeds contain tannins, which can contribute to the drying, sometimes bitter sensation you feel when drinking red wine.

Grape skins

Grape skins supply much of a red wine's color and can add tannin and aroma compounds. How long the juice stays in contact with them helps shape the finished wine.

Grape synonyms

A grape synonym is another name for the same grape variety, used in a different country or region.

Graphite

Graphite, or pencil lead, is sometimes used for a dry, stony aroma in red wine.

Gravel soils

Gravel soil is made up of small stones and coarse grit, so rainwater drains through it quickly.

Green character

Green describes herbal, grassy or bell pepper aromas and flavors in wine.

Green harvest

A green harvest is cutting off some unripe bunches in summer, so a vine has fewer grapes to ripen. French growers call it vendange verte.

Grip on the palate

Grip is the firm, drying sensation tannin creates in your mouth. A wine with strong grip can feel almost like strong black tea.

Gritty

Gritty tannins feel coarse and slightly sandy on your gums and tongue, rather than fine.

Grosses Gewächs and Grosse Lage

Grosses Gewächs, or GG, is a dry wine from a Grosse Lage, a top vineyard ranked by the VDP, a private association of German wine estates. The VDP terms are trademarks, but German labeling law also regulates Großes Gewächs.

Grower

A grower is someone who farms grapes. In wine writing, the word usually points to producers who make wine from their own vineyards rather than from grapes they buy.

Grower Champagne

Grower Champagne usually means Champagne made and sold by the grower from grapes harvested in that grower’s own vineyards.

H

Hail damage

Hail damage is the harm done when ice falls on a vineyard in a storm, tearing leaves and splitting grapes. A bad storm can destroy a whole year's crop.

Hail netting

Hail netting is mesh hung over or beside the vine rows to stop falling ice striking the fruit. The stones hit the net and break up or glance away, so leaves and berries are spared the direct blow. It is common where summer storms are frequent, and it costs money to buy, hang and take down.

Half bottles and magnums

Bottle format is the size of a wine bottle. A standard bottle holds 750 milliliters, a half bottle 375 and a magnum 1.5 liters.

Hand and machine harvest

Grapes are picked either by hand, with pickers cutting whole bunches, or by a machine that drives along the row.

Hand sorting

Hand sorting means people pick through freshly harvested grapes to remove unripe, damaged or rotten fruit, along with leaves, before the wine is made.

Hang time

Hang time is the period between flowering and harvest, while extended hang time means leaving grapes to ripen longer before picking.

Hard foods for wine

A few foods are repeatedly named as difficult with wine: artichoke, asparagus, hot chili, raw garlic, vinegar and some oily fish. The reasons differ. A compound in artichoke makes plain water taste sweet afterwards, alcohol can make chili burn feel stronger, and iron in wine is linked to a fishy aftertaste. Each one needs a different answer.

Harvest

Harvest is when grapes are picked. Earlier-picked grapes tend to have more acidity and less sugar; later-picked grapes tend to have riper flavors and more sugar, which can become alcohol during fermentation.

Heat damage

Heat damage happens when wine is kept too warm, for example in a hot car, and its fresh fruit turns cooked or stewed.

Hectare

A hectare measures land area. It equals 10,000 square meters, or about 2.47 acres, and is commonly used to describe vineyard size.

Herbal

Herbal describes smells of fresh or dried herbs and leaves in wine, such as mint, thyme, bay, cut grass or green bell pepper.

Heritage and heirloom varieties

Heritage and heirloom describe old or rare grape varieties, or old vineyards, kept alive for their history. Neither word has a legal definition.

Holding the soil in place

Erosion is soil being carried off a site by running water or wind, and it hits sloping vineyards hardest. The soil holds the water a vine reaches, so losing depth means a smaller store and a vine that runs short sooner. Growers slow it with cover plants, terraces, mulch and rows laid across a slope rather than straight down it.

Honeyed

Honeyed describes a wine with an aroma or flavor that reminds you of honey.

Honeysuckle

Honeysuckle is a sweet, floral aroma that reminds people of the climbing flower, with a scent somewhere between honey and blossom.

Horizontal tasting

A horizontal tasting compares wines from the same year made by different producers, often from one region.

How a vine feeds

A vine does not feed on rock. It takes up nutrients only as they are dissolved in soil water and drawn in through the roots, so a dry soil can hold plenty a vine cannot reach. Nitrogen, potassium and magnesium are the ones growers watch. Leaf and soil tests are how a shortage is found.

How a vine is grafted

Grafting joins a cutting of the wine grape you want onto a separate root. In a nursery the two pieces are cut to interlock, bound and kept warm until they fuse. In the vineyard an existing trunk can be sawn off and a new variety grafted onto the living root instead. The second gives a crop sooner than replanting.

How a wine list is built

A wine list's order is a choice the venue makes, and knowing the common ones helps you find your way. Lists are most often arranged by country and region, by grape, or by style from light to full. Many then split sparkling, white, red, sweet and fortified wines into separate parts.

How long an open bottle lasts

Once a bottle is open the wine is meeting air, and oxidation, the slow reaction with oxygen that also browns a cut apple, begins with the first pour. Most whites and light reds usually hold two or three days recorked in the refrigerator. A half-empty bottle holds more air, so the decline speeds up toward the end.

How long the fizz lasts

Persistence is how long the bubbles keep rising in a glass of sparkling wine and how long the foam on top lasts. A persistent mousse or bead keeps going for a long time.

How long the skins stay

In red winemaking, maceration length is how long the wine stays in contact with grape skins. Skin contact extracts color and tannin, the drying feeling in your mouth.

How Moscato d'Asti is made

Moscato d'Asti is made by stopping fermentation early instead of fermenting a wine and then making it fizzy. Moscato Bianco juice ferments in a sealed pressure tank, and the winemaker chills it and filters the yeast out while sugar remains. The result is sweet, grapey, gently fizzy and low in alcohol.

How much water a soil holds

A soil's water holding is how much rain it can take in and keep where roots can reach it. Clay and silt hold a lot and release it slowly, while sand and gravel drain fast and hold little. Depth matters as much as the type, because a deep soil stores far more water than a shallow one of the same material.

How sediment is removed

Disgorgement is the moment the spent yeast is taken out of a sparkling bottle. The neck is plunged into freezing liquid so the sediment sets into an ice plug, the cap comes off, and the pressure inside fires the plug out. The bottle is then topped up and corked. Very little wine is lost.

How the dish is cooked

The same ingredient can want a different wine depending on how it was cooked. Grilling adds char and bitterness, frying adds fat, roasting concentrates sugar, and poaching leaves the food delicate. Each of those is one of the parts known to change how a wine tastes, so poached fish and charred fish are two problems.

How to ask for help

A sommelier is the person in a restaurant who looks after the wine, and how helpful the answer is depends on what you give them. Naming a wine you enjoyed before, plus a price you are comfortable with, fixes both the style and the budget in one sentence. A grape name alone fixes very little.

Humid climate

A humid climate has a lot of moisture in the air. In vineyards, prolonged damp conditions can increase the risk of grape diseases and rot.

Humidity in a store

Humidity is how much moisture the air in a store holds. Damp air is said to stop a cork drying and shrinking, and very damp air ruins labels. Published advice differs widely, from 60 to 80 percent relative humidity down to simply a cool, dry place. Steady temperature and darkness are better proved.

Hybrid grape varieties

A hybrid is a grape variety bred from two different species of grapevine, usually a European wine grape crossed with an American one. Breeders do it to gain natural resistance to cold and disease.

Hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide is the compound behind a rotten egg smell in wine. Even a tiny amount is easy to notice.

I

Indigenous and autochthonous varieties

An indigenous grape, also called native or autochthonous, is a variety traditionally considered native to a particular place.

Inoculated fermentation

An inoculated fermentation is one the winemaker starts deliberately. Dried yeast of a chosen strain is rehydrated in warm water and stirred into the juice, so that strain outnumbers everything else and takes over the tank. It is the predictable route, and it is the usual choice in a large commercial cellar.

Insuring wine

Wine insurance covers loss or damage to bottles you own, whether they sit at home or in a warehouse. A household contents policy may cap what it pays on a collection, or exclude wine held off the premises, so stored wine is often insured separately. Cover is a running cost, renewed each year.

Intensity

Intensity is how strong a wine's aromas and flavors are, from faint to pronounced.

International varieties

International varieties are grapes planted in wine countries all over the world, such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.

Investment wine

Investment wine is wine bought to sell later at a profit rather than to drink.

Iron note

An iron note is a metallic, slightly blood-like impression in a wine's aroma or taste, similar to the smell of an iron pan or rare meat.

Italy's IGT category

IGT is an Italian wine category for wines from a broad named area, with looser rules than the stricter DOC and DOCG categories.

J

Jammy

Jammy describes wine with fruit aromas and flavors that remind you of cooked berries or jam rather than fresh fruit.

Joven

Joven is Spanish for young. On a wine label, it generally describes a wine released without the minimum aging required for terms such as Crianza, Reserva or Gran Reserva.

Juicy

Juicy describes a wine with ripe fruit flavors and mouthwatering acidity, like biting into a ripe plum or berry.

K

Keeping the fizz

Fizz is carbon dioxide dissolved in the wine, held there by the pressure inside a sealed bottle. Once the bottle is opened the gas starts leaving, and it cannot be put back. Keeping the bottle cold and closed under an airtight stopper slows the loss, and a half-empty bottle loses it faster.

Kirsch

In a tasting note, kirsch describes an intense, concentrated cherry aroma with a warm, liqueur-like edge.

Kosher wine

Kosher wine is produced according to Jewish dietary rules, with approved ingredients, equipment and certified supervision of production.

L

Labeled by place or by grape

A wine label tells you what is in the bottle in one of two ways. A French label usually names the place, and the place comes with a rulebook of permitted grapes. An Australian label usually names the grape instead. Chablis is the clearest case: the label prints a place in Burgundy and the wine is Chardonnay.

Late Bottled Vintage

Late Bottled Vintage, or LBV, is a Port from one harvest, bottled in its fourth to sixth year after aging in wood or an inert tank. It is usually ready to drink when sold.

Late disgorgement

A late-disgorged sparkling wine rested in the bottle on its spent yeast for much longer than usual before that sediment was removed.

Late harvest on a label

Late harvest means the grapes were picked later than usual, so they are riper and carry more sugar.

Layered

Layered is a tasting word for a wine that reveals several flavors and textures one after another as you taste it, rather than everything at once.

Laying a wine down

Laying a wine down means storing a bottle so it can develop over years, instead of drinking it now.

Leaf removal

Leaf removal means pulling off the leaves around the grape bunches so more sunlight and air reach the fruit.

Lean

Lean describes a wine that feels light and slender, with modest fruit and noticeable acidity rather than richness or weight.

Leather

Leather describes a savory aroma like a leather jacket or saddle.

Lees aging

Lees are the yeast particles left after fermentation. Aging wine in contact with them can add texture and aromas that remind people of bread, nuts or toast.

Legs and tears

Legs, also called tears, are the streaks that form inside a wine glass after swirling. They relate mainly to alcohol and surface tension, not wine quality.

Lemon curd

Lemon curd describes a smell or flavor like the cooked spread of lemon, butter and sugar: tangy citrus with a soft, creamy side.

Letting a wine breathe

Letting a wine breathe means giving it contact with air before you drink it, so its aromas have time to change and open up.

Library release

A library release is wine the winery held back in its own cellar and sold years after its first release.

Licorice

Licorice describes an aroma in some red wines that recalls black licorice or anise: sweet-smelling, dark and a little herbal.

Light red

A light red is a red wine with a light body and usually gentle tannin.

Light strike

Light strike is damage done to wine by light shining through the bottle. It can leave the wine smelling of wet wool or cooked cabbage, with its fruit faded.

Limestone

Limestone is a pale rock made mostly of calcium carbonate, and in vineyards it can weather into stony soil.

Linear

Linear describes a wine that feels narrow and focused from first sip to finish, rather than broad or round.

Liqueur d'expédition

Liqueur d'expédition is the mix of wine and usually a little sugar added to sparkling wine just before corking, which sets how sweet it tastes.

Liqueur de tirage

Liqueur de tirage is a mix of wine, sugar and yeast added to a still wine as it is bottled, starting the fermentation that makes it sparkling.

Loose and compact bunches

Compact bunches have their grapes packed tightly together, while loose bunches leave more space between the berries.

Low alcohol

A low-alcohol wine contains noticeably less alcohol than a typical table wine, so it feels lighter and less warming.

Luscious

Luscious describes a wine that feels rich, sweet and full in your mouth, with ripe, concentrated fruit.

Lush

Lush describes a wine that feels rich, soft and full of ripe fruit.

M

Macvin

Macvin du Jura is a sweet French drink served before a meal. It is made by adding marc, a spirit distilled from grape skins and seeds, to grape juice before or just as fermentation starts.

Malmsey

Malmsey is the sweetest of the classic Madeira styles. Madeira is a fortified wine from the Portuguese island of that name, and Malmsey is made from the Malvasia grape.

Malolactic conversion

Malolactic conversion is a process that softens a wine's acidity. It can also help create the buttery aromas found in some Chardonnays.

Manzanilla Sherry

Manzanilla is a pale, dry Sherry that must be aged in the coastal town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain. It is made like Fino, under a layer of yeast called flor.

Marc

Marc is the French word for the solid grape remains left after pressing. It also names a spirit distilled from those remains, such as Marc de Bourgogne.

Maritime climate

A maritime climate is one shaped by a nearby sea, which keeps temperatures steady, with cooler summers and milder winters than inland.

Marmalade

Marmalade describes a smell or flavor like orange jam made with the peel: sweet, cooked orange with a slightly bitter edge.

Massal selection

Massal selection means replanting a vineyard with cuttings from many selected vines, rather than copies of a single vine. In French, it is sélection massale.

Matching flavor intensity

Intensity is how loudly a dish or a wine tastes, and weight is how heavy it feels. Matching roughly similar intensity is one useful starting point, because a rich dish can overwhelm a very delicate wine. It is not the first thing to check: acidity, sweetness, tannin, salt and chili heat can matter just as much.

Matching texture

Texture is how food and wine feel rather than how they taste: creamy, crunchy, chewy, silky, or prickling with bubbles. Wine carries texture through its bubbles, its body and tannin, the drying grip like strong black tea. Matching or contrasting texture is one useful starting point, as when bubbles are poured beside something fried.

Mediterranean climate

A Mediterranean climate has warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters.

Mercaptans and heavier sulfides

In wine-fault language, mercaptans are sulfur compounds linked to unwanted onion or cabbage smells. As they react, they can form other sulfur compounds that smell like garlic or burnt rubber.

Meritage

Meritage is a name used mainly in the United States for a wine blended from the traditional Bordeaux grapes, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.

MGA

MGA stands for Menzione Geografica Aggiuntiva, Italian for additional geographical mention. It is an officially delimited area within an appellation that may appear on a label, such as Cannubi in Barolo.

Micro-oxygenation in the tank

Micro-oxygenation means slowly feeding a small, measured amount of oxygen into a tank of wine as tiny bubbles.

Minerality

Minerality describes impressions such as wet stone, chalk or saltiness. It is a tasting description, not a literal taste from vineyard rocks.

Minimum aging

A minimum aging rule sets the shortest time a wine must age before it can be sold under a particular name or label term.

Mint and eucalyptus

Mint and eucalyptus are cool, fresh herbal aromas found in some red wines, a little like menthol. They are especially associated with Cabernet Sauvignon from parts of Australia.

Mis en bouteille au château

Mis en bouteille au château is French for bottled at the château. It means the wine was bottled at the estate that made it.

Mistelle

A mistelle is typically made by adding spirit to fresh grape juice before it ferments. The spirit prevents fermentation, so the drink keeps the sweetness of the grapes.

Modern and traditional styles

Modern and traditional are loose terms for newer and longer-established winemaking approaches within a region.

Moelleux

Moelleux is a French wine-label term for a noticeably sweet wine. You may see it on Loire Valley wines such as Vouvray.

Monopole vineyards

Monopole, a word seen mostly on Burgundy labels, means a single owner holds the whole of a named vineyard.

Mountain vineyards

Mountain vineyards grow at high elevations, often on steep slopes. Elevation can cool the growing season, but the exact effect depends on the site.

Mousiness, a delayed fault

Mousiness is a wine fault that shows up as a stale, mousy or cracker-like taste at the back of the mouth a few seconds after swallowing.

Mouthfeel and texture

Mouthfeel is how a wine feels in your mouth, rather than how it smells or tastes: light or heavy, smooth or rough, soft or drying.

Muscular

Muscular describes a full-bodied red wine with firm tannin and a weighty feel.

N

Natural cork

A natural cork is a stopper cut from the bark of the cork oak tree. The bark is full of tiny air cells, so it squeezes into the bottle neck and springs back to seal it.

Natural wine

Natural wine generally refers to wine made with few additions or processing steps.

Needle preservation systems

A needle system pushes a thin needle through the cork, forces gas in to drive wine out, and relies on the cork closing behind the needle once it is withdrawn. The bottle is never opened, so very little air reaches the wine. The weeks of freshness claimed for it rest mainly on testing by the companies selling it.

Nervy

A nervy wine has high, lively acidity that makes it feel taut and full of energy, as if it is pulling tight across your tongue.

Night harvesting

Night harvesting means picking grapes in the dark or before dawn, when the vineyard is coolest.

No added sulfites

No added sulfites, or sans soufre ajouté in French, means the winemaker did not add sulfur dioxide, the usual preservative, at any stage.

Nose

The nose is the smell of a wine in the glass. When a note says cherry on the nose, it means you smell cherry before you taste it.

Nouveau and novello

Nouveau in French and novello in Italian mark wine bottled and sold within weeks of the harvest, made to be drunk young and fresh.

Nutty

Nutty describes aromas in wine that recall almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts.

O

Oak chips and staves

Oak chips and staves are pieces of oak placed in wine, often in a steel tank, to give it some of the flavor of a barrel without using one.

Oaky

An oaky wine smells or tastes clearly of the oak barrels it was aged in, with notes such as vanilla, toast, smoke or coconut.

Off-dry

An off-dry wine has a small amount of noticeable sweetness, more than a dry wine.

Oily texture

An oily wine feels slick and weighty, coating your mouth.

Old vines

Old vines are grapevines that have grown in the same spot for decades. French labels call them vieilles vignes and Spanish labels viñas viejas.

Old World and New World

Old World usually means wine from Europe, and New World means wine from places such as the United States, Australia and Chile.

Olive

Some red wines smell or taste of olives, from salty, savory black olive to sharper, herbal green olive.

Oloroso Sherry

Oloroso is a dark, nutty Sherry from southern Spain, aged in contact with air rather than under a protective layer of yeast. Most Oloroso is dry.

On trade and off trade

On-trade means places where wine is bought and drunk on the spot, such as restaurants and bars. Off-trade means shops and websites, where you take the bottle away.

Open-top fermenters

Open-top fermenters are vats with no lid, used mainly for red wines. They let winemakers push the floating layer of grape skins back down into the juice, often by hand.

Orange wine

Orange wine is white wine made by fermenting the juice with its grape skins, the way red wine is made.

Organic

Organic wine is made from certified organic grapes and must follow the farming and winemaking rules of the country where it is sold.

Organic seals by country

An organic seal on a wine label means the wine was certified under the organic rules of the market where it is sold, and those rules differ by place.

Original wooden case

OWC stands for original wooden case, the box a wine was first packed in at the winery. OCB means the original cardboard carton.

Ouillé

Ouillé on a Jura label means the wine aged in barrels kept full as it evaporated, which limits its contact with air.

Over the hill

An over-the-hill wine has aged past its best. Its fruit has faded, and it is not going to get better.

Overwhelmed and clashing

Two different things go wrong at a table. In a clash, something in the dish makes the wine taste harsh or metallic when neither tasted that way alone. In the other case the wine is pleasant and the dish is simply louder, so the wine disappears. The two need different repairs.

Own label

An own-label wine is sold under a store's or restaurant's brand and made or bottled for that business by a wine producer.

Own-rooted vines

Own-rooted vines grow on their own roots. Most of the world's vines are instead grafted onto rootstock that resists phylloxera, a tiny insect that attacks vine roots.

Oxidized wine

When wine reacts with oxygen, its aromas and flavors can change. Fresh fruit may fade, while notes of bruised apple, nuts or dried fruit can develop.

Oxygen transfer rate

Oxygen transfer rate is how much oxygen passes through a bottle's closure over time.

P

Palate

In a tasting note, the palate means what you notice once the wine is in your mouth: flavor, sweetness, acidity, tannin and body.

Palate cleansing

A palate cleanser is something plain you eat or drink between sips or bites to clear lingering flavors, so the next taste comes through more clearly.

Palate fatigue

Palate fatigue is when your senses tire after tasting many wines, so the differences between them become harder to notice.

Pale

Pale describes a wine with little color intensity, so its color looks light in the glass.

Palo cortado

Palo cortado is a dry Sherry that smells similar to an Amontillado but feels fuller in the mouth, closer to an Oloroso.

Parent and offspring varieties

Many grapes are the offspring of two older varieties, the result of a cross between them that DNA testing can now trace.

Passerillage

Passerillage is the drying of grapes until they shrivel like raisins, either left on the vine or laid out after picking. Drying concentrates their sugar and flavor.

Pedro Ximénez

Pedro Ximénez is a white grape grown mainly in southern Spain. It is best known for a very sweet, dark Sherry, often shortened to PX.

Perfumed

Perfumed often describes a wine whose smell is especially fragrant and layered, mixing aromas such as flowers, fruit and spice.

Pergola

A pergola is an overhead trellis that holds vine leaves and grape bunches above head height, like a leafy roof.

Permitted varieties

Permitted varieties are the grapes a wine region's rules allow in a wine sold under its name.

Perpetual reserve

A perpetual reserve is a store of wine that a producer adds to and draws from every year, so it holds a little of every harvest since it began.

Persistent

A persistent wine keeps its flavors in your mouth for a long time after you swallow or spit it out.

Pet nat

Pet nat is short for petillant naturel, the modern name for a sparkling wine bottled before its first fermentation has finished. Nothing is added: the gas comes from the sugar still in the juice. Most bottles are sealed with a metal crown cap, hold cloudy sediment, and vary from one bottle to the next.

Petrol in aged Riesling

Petrol is a smell like gasoline or kerosene that can appear in Riesling, usually after several years in bottle.

Phenolic ripeness

Phenolic ripeness is how fully the tannins in a grape's skins and seeds and the color in its skins have developed, separate from sugar ripeness.

Picking block by block

Picking by block means harvesting a vineyard piece by piece on separate days instead of all at once, because the pieces ripen at different times. Each block's fruit is kept apart in the cellar, so the winemaker can taste and blend them later. It is why one estate's harvest can run for three weeks.

Pince

Pince is Hungarian for cellar, and on a Hungarian label it usually means the winery, as in Fekete Pince.

Pineau des Charentes

Pineau des Charentes is a sweet French aperitif made by adding Cognac to freshly pressed grape juice, then aging the blend in oak.

Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris

Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris are two names for exactly the same white grape. The name usually signals what the producer was aiming for. Grigio, the Italian word, tends to mean a lighter, crisper, more neutral wine, and Gris, used in Alsace in France, tends to mean something riper and rounder. It is a habit rather than a rule.

Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon

Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon are two dry red grapes worth learning side by side. Pinot Noir typically shows red fruit, high acidity, a lighter body and gentle, barely drying tannin. Cabernet Sauvignon typically shows black fruit, a fuller body and firm tannin, the drying grip of a red. The difference starts with the skins.

Pinot Noir, by structure

Pinot Noir is a red grape with thin skins, so its wines are usually pale, light to medium in body, and gentle in tannin, the drying grip of a red. Its structure sits in the acidity and in how long the flavor lasts, rather than in grip. Color is a poor guide to how concentrated these wines are. Red Burgundy is the reference style.

Piquette

Piquette is a light, low-alcohol drink made by soaking pressed grape skins in water and fermenting the sugar left in them.

Pomace

Pomace is what remains after grapes are pressed: the skins, seeds and sometimes stems.

Port

Port is a fortified wine from Portugal's Douro region, usually sweet. Grape spirit is added during fermentation, which stops it while natural grape sugar remains.

Port lodges

A Port lodge is a cool, humid warehouse where Port is matured and blended, traditionally at Vila Nova de Gaia across the river from the city of Porto. The steady temperature near the Atlantic suits long aging in wood. Tawny Ports in particular spend their years here rather than out in the vineyards.

Port quintas

A quinta is a wine estate in Portugal's Douro Valley, and a Single Quinta Port is made from the grapes of one named estate.

Powdery

Powdery tannins are so fine they feel like a soft dusting of talc on your tongue and gums.

Powerful and bold

Powerful and bold often describe wines with strong flavor and a big presence in the mouth.

Precise and focused

Precise describes a wine whose flavors feel clearly defined rather than blurred together.

Premature oxidation

Premature oxidation is when a white wine ages far faster than expected, turning deep gold and tasting of honey and bruised apple while still young.

Premier cru

Premier Cru is a French classification whose meaning depends on the region. In Burgundy, it refers to specially designated vineyard areas.

Press fractions

Press fractions are separate batches of juice collected at different stages as grapes are pressed. Later fractions usually contain more compounds extracted from the skins and seeds, including bitter-tasting phenolics.

Pressing

Pressing means squeezing grapes to separate the juice from the skins and seeds. White grapes are usually pressed before fermentation, red grapes after it.

Pressure in the bottle

Pressure is how strongly the carbon dioxide trapped in a bottle of sparkling wine pushes outward, and it shapes how lively the bubbles feel.

Prestige cuvée

A prestige cuvée is a sparkling wine producer's flagship bottling. The name is the producer's own choice, not a legal grade.

Principal and accessory varieties

Some French appellation rules divide allowed grapes into principal and accessory varieties. Principal varieties are the main grapes, while accessory varieties are optional and allowed in smaller proportions set by the appellation.

Propriétaire and viticulteur

Propriétaire means owner and viticulteur means grape grower, so on a French label they say the person or family named owns or farms the vineyards.

Protected designation of origin

A protected designation of origin is the stricter of the two European Union classes of place name on a wine label. Every grape must grow inside one mapped area, and that area's own rulebook fixes the permitted grapes, the maximum crop and much of the winemaking. Chablis and Chianti are both protected designations of origin.

Protected geographical indication

A protected geographical indication is the looser of the two European Union classes of place name on wine. Most of the fruit, rather than all of it, has to come from the named area, and the area can be as wide as a whole region. The rules also permit more grape varieties than the stricter class.

Protein haze

Protein haze is a harmless cloudiness that can appear in white wine when natural grape proteins clump together, usually after the bottle gets warm.

Pumping over

Pumping over means drawing fermenting red wine from the bottom of the tank and spraying it over the grape skins floating on top. Wet skins keep releasing color, flavor and tannin.

Punching down

Punching down means pushing the floating layer of grape skins back down into fermenting red wine, using a plunger or even feet. The French word is pigeage.

Pyrazines and bell pepper

Pyrazines are natural grape compounds that give some wines a smell of green bell pepper or freshly cut grass.

Père et fils

Père et fils is French for father and son, while & Fils after a name means and sons. On a wine label, these words present the producer as a family business.

Q

Quince

Quince is a fragrant yellow fruit somewhere between an apple and a pear, usually eaten cooked. In wine, it describes a ripe, slightly honeyed orchard fruit note, often in white wines.

Quinta

Quinta is Portuguese for a farm or estate. It commonly appears in the names of wine properties, especially in the Douro Valley.

R

Rack and return

Rack and return means draining fermenting red wine away from its grape skins into another tank, then pouring it back over them. The French name is délestage.

Racking the wine

Racking means moving clear wine off the sediment that settles at the bottom of a tank or barrel, into a clean vessel.

Rain at harvest

Rain at harvest is rain falling in the weeks when the grapes are ready to pick.

Rain shadow

A rain shadow is the dry area on the sheltered side of a mountain range. The mountains catch the rain, so vineyards beyond them get far less.

Rainwater Madeira

Rainwater is a style of Madeira, the fortified wine from the Portuguese island of the same name. It is pale to golden in color and medium dry.

Rancio

Rancio describes aromas of toasted nuts and dried fruit that can develop during long aging with exposure to air.

Reading a secondary market price

A quoted price for a wine on the resale market needs reading before it can be compared. Ask whether it is a bid, an offer or the last recorded trade, whether alcohol tax is included, and whether the figure is for one bottle or a whole case. Two quotes answering those differently are not comparable.

Reading aroma clusters

A cluster is a group of clues that point the same way at once. One aroma on its own is evidence rather than proof, because red cherry turns up in many grapes. Red cherry together with high acidity, pale color and little drying tannin narrows the field a long way. Dried fruit with a nutty note suggests age.

Reading the cork

Inspecting the cork means reading the piece of cork once it is out of the bottle. Staining running up the side, a cork that comes out hard and crumbling, or crystals on the base are each worth noting. None of it is the test, because only the wine in the glass settles whether a bottle is sound.

Recioto

Recioto is a sweet wine from Italy's Veneto, made from grapes dried for weeks or months after harvest. Drying concentrates their sugar, and fermentation stops while plenty remains.

Recorked and reconditioned bottles

A recorked bottle has had its cork replaced. Reconditioned is a broader trade description for an older bottle that has been serviced, so the sale record should state what was done.

Red blend

Red blend on a US label means a red wine made from more than one grape, and the label may or may not name them.

Reduction

Reduction is a group of sulfur smells in wine, ranging from struck match or flint to rubber, cabbage or drains.

Reduction or Brett

Funky describes earthy, savory or animal smells in wine, which often come from one of two causes: reduction or Brettanomyces, a yeast.

Refermentation in the bottle

Refermentation in the bottle is fermentation starting again after a still wine has been sealed, leaving it unexpectedly fizzy.

Region

A wine region is an area known for growing grapes and making wine, shaped by its climate, soils and traditions.

Reserve wine

Reserve wine is wine from earlier harvests that a producer keeps back and blends into a new release.

Restrained

A restrained wine has quiet, subtle aromas and flavors rather than bold ones. Ripeness, oak or alcohol is held back instead of standing out.

Reverse osmosis

Reverse osmosis pushes wine through a very fine membrane under pressure, separating it into concentrated wine and a liquid containing water and alcohol.

Rhône blend

A Rhône blend combines grapes traditionally grown in France's Rhône Valley. For reds, that usually means Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre, often shortened to GSM.

Rich

Rich describes a wine that feels full in your mouth and has concentrated flavor.

Ried

A Ried is a named, officially recorded single vineyard site in Austria.

Rim

The rim is the outer edge of the wine you see when tilting a glass. Its color can offer clues about the wine's development.

Rinsing the glass

Rinsing a glass means swilling a little of the wine around it and pouring that away before serving. It washes out dust, traces of detergent and the stale smell a cupboard leaves, all of which sit in the air you smell first. A rinse with water can leave water behind instead.

Ripasso

Ripasso is a Valpolicella red wine that undergoes another fermentation using grape skins left from Amarone or Recioto production.

Ripe

Ripe describes fruit flavors that resemble fully mature fruit rather than tart, green or underripe fruit.

Ripe tannin

Ripe tannin is tannin, the drying feeling in red wine, that feels smooth and fine rather than hard, green or bitter. It is a taster's judgment, not a measurement.

Ripeness

Ripeness is how far grapes have developed by the time they are picked. As grapes ripen, their sugar rises, their acidity falls and their flavors develop.

Rive

On Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco, Rive followed by a place name identifies grapes from a specific officially recognized area.

Roble

Roble is Spanish for oak. On a Spanish label, especially in Ribera del Duero, it usually marks a young red that spent a short time in oak barrels.

Robust

Robust describes a wine with a full body and strong flavors, usually a red with firm tannin.

Rootstock trials

A rootstock trial grafts one grape variety onto several different roots on the same site, then compares how the vines cope. The root is what meets the soil, so it strongly influences how much drought and how much chalk a vine can handle. Growers lean on the results because a root is planted once and lived with for decades.

Rosso

Rosso is Italian for red. On an Italian label it tells you the bottle holds red wine.

Rosé

Rosé is pink wine, usually made from red grapes whose dark skins stay in the juice only briefly. The short contact gives color without much tannin.

Rosé in sparkling wine

Sparkling rosé gets its pink color either from brief contact with dark grape skins or from a little red wine blended into white wine.

Rouge

Rouge is French for red. On a French label, it tells you the bottle holds red wine.

Round

Round describes a wine that feels full and gentle in your mouth, without sharpness or a rough, drying grip.

Ruby

Ruby describes a red wine color like the gemstone, without much purple or orange.

Ruby Port

Ruby Port is a young, sweet red Port, the fortified wine from Portugal's Douro Valley. It is bottled early to keep its deep red color and fresh berry flavors.

Rustic

Rustic describes a wine with a more rugged texture or earthy character, often with firm tannin and savory or farmyard notes.

S

Saffron

A saffron note smells like the spice: warm and honeyed, with hints of hay and metal.

Salinity and saline notes

Salinity describes a salty or sea-air impression some tasters notice in wine. It is a contested tasting word, since wine holds very little table salt.

Salt and tannin

Salt in food lowers how bitter a wine tastes, which is one of the best supported effects at the table. It does not change the drying grip of tannin, the strong black tea feeling, because bitterness is a taste and that grip is a feel. Fat and protein in the food are what make the grip seem gentler.

Satiny

Satiny describes a wine that glides across your mouth, with a fine, slippery feel and tannin that barely registers as drying.

Sauternes and noble rot

Noble rot, or botrytis, is a mold that shrivels ripe grapes, letting water escape and concentrating their sugar and acidity. It is used to make sweet wines such as Sauternes, from Bordeaux.

Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay

Sauvignon Blanc is usually naturally more aromatic, often showing citrus, herbal or tropical notes with high acidity. Chardonnay is generally less aromatic on its own, so climate and winemaking choices such as oak and malolactic conversion can shape its style more noticeably. Both are usually made dry, so the difference is aroma and texture rather than sweetness.

Sauvignon Blanc, by structure

Sauvignon Blanc is a white grape known for strong herbal, grassy or citrus aromas and high acidity, usually made into a dry, light to medium-bodied wine.

Savory character

Savory describes wine aromas that remind you of herbs, mushrooms, earth or cured meat rather than fresh fruit.

Schist soils

Schist is a rock that splits into thin, flat layers.

Scores out of 100

A critic score is a number a wine critic gives a wine to sum up their opinion of it, most often on a scale out of 100.

Sea breezes

Sea breezes are cool winds that blow inland from the ocean, often in the afternoon, lowering the temperature in nearby vineyards.

Sec

Sec is French for dry. On a still French wine such as Vouvray, it means the wine has little or no sugar left after fermentation.

Secco

Secco is Italian for dry. On a still Italian wine, it means the wine has little or no sugar left after fermentation.

Seco

Seco is Spanish and Portuguese for dry. On a still wine, it means little or no sugar is left after fermentation.

Second wine

A second wine is a separate, usually cheaper label from a Bordeaux estate, blended from different plots or lots than its main bottling, the grand vin.

Secondary market

The secondary market is where wine is resold after its first sale, through merchants, brokers, exchanges and auction houses.

Sediment in an older red

Sediment is the fine, dark grit that can collect at the bottom of a red wine bottle.

Seeds turning brown

Seed lignification is the grape pip turning from soft and green to hard and brown as the fruit ripens. The seed builds a woody coat, and the harsh green taste in it fades. It is the one ripeness sign anybody can check by eye, which is why growers chew berries in the row. Brown seeds usually mean ripening is well advanced.

Sekt and Winzersekt

Sekt is the German word for sparkling wine. Winzersekt is a stricter kind, made from a grower's own grapes with the bubbles created in the bottle.

Semi-carbonic

Semi-carbonic fermentation starts with whole, uncrushed grape bunches in a closed tank. Grapes at the bottom are crushed by the weight above and ferment, filling the tank with carbon dioxide.

Semi-generic names

Semi-generic names are European place names, such as Chablis or Burgundy, that American wineries once used for wine made elsewhere. The name described a style, not where the wine came from.

Semiseco

On still Spanish wine, semiseco means medium dry. On Cava, it marks a sweeter sparkling wine with 32 to 50 grams of sugar per liter.

Sercial

Sercial is the name associated with Madeira's driest traditional grape-based style, known for pronounced acidity.

Serving sweet wine

Sweet wines are usually served cooler than a dry wine of the same weight. Cold makes sugar less obvious and acidity more noticeable, so the wine tastes fresher rather than heavy. Pours are small, because sweetness fills the mouth quickly. Sweet styles differ enormously, so no single temperature covers Moscato d'Asti and Sauternes alike.

Serving temperature

Serving temperature is how cold or warm a wine is when you pour it, and it changes how the wine smells and tastes.

Settling the juice

Settling means leaving freshly pressed white grape juice cold and still so the cloudy bits of skin and pulp sink, then drawing off the clear juice.

Sharp

Sharp describes acidity that feels pointed and very noticeable on your tongue, like biting into a tart green apple.

Sherry

Sherry is a fortified wine from the area around Jerez in southern Spain. Its classic styles are dry, from pale, tangy Fino to dark, nutty Oloroso.

Sherry butts

Sherry ages in a bota, a large cask of American oak that is deliberately old and neutral. New wood would add vanilla and toast, which is not wanted here, so casks stay in service for decades. The cask's job is to let very small amounts of air reach the wine, not to flavor it.

Shipping in bond

Shipping in bond means moving wine between approved warehouses with the alcohol tax still unpaid. In the United Kingdom and the European Union, duty suspension arrangements let cases travel under official paperwork and a financial guarantee, and the duty falls due only when the wine is released for drinking. Other countries run their own schemes under other names.

Silky

Silky describes a wine that feels smooth and fine in the mouth. It most often refers to tannin, the drying feel in red wine.

Single vineyard wines

A single-vineyard wine comes from one specifically named vineyard, rather than grapes brought together from different vineyard sites.

Skin to juice ratio

The skin-to-juice ratio is how much grape skin there is compared with the juice inside. Skins contain the pigments that color red wine and some of the grape's tannin, the drying feel in red wine.

Slate

Slate is a dark, layered rock found in some famous steep vineyards. It drains water quickly and can absorb the sun's heat, helping grapes ripen in cool places.

Slavonian oak

Slavonian oak comes from the Slavonia region of Croatia. It is traditionally made into large casks for aging Italian red wines such as Barolo and Brunello di Montalcino.

Smaragd

Smaragd is Vinea Wachau's name for its full-bodied style of dry white wine. The grapes remain longer on the vine, and the wines contain at least 12.5% alcohol.

Smell blind spots

Anosmia means not being able to smell. Most interesting for wine is specific anosmia, where someone whose sense of smell is otherwise normal cannot smell one particular compound. A well-known case is the peppery compound in Syrah, which many people cannot detect at all. Colds, allergies and smoking can also flatten smell for a while.

Smoke and char

Grilling and smoking leave two things on food: smoky aroma compounds, and bitter compounds from the browned or blackened surface. The aroma part can echo a wine with smoky or peppery notes of its own. The bitter part is the difficulty, because it adds to whatever bitterness the wine already has.

Smoke taint

Smoke taint is a fault caused by smoke from fires reaching grapes on the vine, which can make the wine smell and taste ashy, burnt or medicinal.

Smoked meat

Smoked meat describes a savory aroma in some red wines that recalls bacon, cured ham or roast meat.

Smoky

Smoky describes an aroma like a campfire, struck match or smoked meat.

Smooth

Smooth describes a wine without much drying grip, sharpness or alcoholic burn.

Sobretablas

Sobretablas is the stage after a young Sherry has been fortified and before it is classed. The wine rests in cask for several months while the cellar master tastes it and decides which route it will take. Only then does it join the casks that will age it, either under a film of yeast or in contact with air.

Soft

Soft describes a wine that feels gentle in your mouth, without much drying grip or sharp acidity.

Sommelier and wine director

A sommelier is the person in a restaurant responsible for wine, from buying and storing it to writing the list and serving it at the table.

Sous voile

Sous voile, French for under the veil, describes a white wine aged in a partly filled barrel beneath a film of yeast that forms on its surface.

Sparkling wine

Sparkling wine has bubbles of carbon dioxide dissolved in it. Usually the bubbles come from a second fermentation, either in the bottle or in a sealed tank.

Sparkling wine and salt

Bubbles are felt rather than tasted, arriving partly as a mild prickling irritation. Carbonation also tends to raise how sour a drink seems and lower how sweet it seems. Salty food, meanwhile, lowers how bitter a wine tastes. Together those are the reasons usually given for pouring dry sparkling wine with salty, fried or cured things.

Sparkling wine stoppers

A sparkling stopper is a cap that clamps over the neck of an opened bottle of sparkling wine to hold the pressure in and keep it fizzy.

Spice notes

Spicy in wine means aromas that remind you of kitchen spices such as black pepper, cinnamon or clove, rather than the heat of chili.

Spritz in still wine

Spritz is a light prickle of bubbles on the tongue in a wine that is not sold as sparkling.

Stainless steel

Stainless steel tanks hold wine without adding flavor from the vessel. They can be cooled during fermentation and closed to limit contact with air.

Standing a bottle upright

Standing a bottle upright before opening lets any deposit slide down and gather at the base, out of the way of the pour. A day is the figure usually given for an older red. It does nothing to the wine itself, and a bottle carried upright from a shop has already had some of that time.

Steely

Steely is a tasting word for a white wine that tastes very clean, crisp and firm, with sharp acidity and little sense of oak or sweetness.

Steinfeder

In Austria's Wachau, Steinfeder is the lightest of three categories for dry white wine, used for fresh, light-bodied wines, often Grüner Veltliner.

Stems

Stems are the woody stalks that hold a bunch of grapes together. Some winemakers remove them before fermentation, while others leave some or all of them in.

Stemware and stemless

Stemware means glasses with a stem and a foot, and stemless means the same bowl without them. The stem keeps a hand off the bowl, so the wine warms more slowly and the glass stays clear enough to see the color through. The international tasting glass is specified with a stem, which is where the habit comes from.

Sterile filtration

Sterile filtration means passing wine through a membrane designed to remove yeast and bacteria just before bottling.

Still wine

Still wine is wine without bubbles. Most red, white and rosé wines are still, as opposed to sparkling wines such as Champagne or Prosecco.

Stirring the lees

Stirring the lees means stirring the dead yeast that settles after fermentation back up through the wine. The French word is bâtonnage.

Storing wine at home

Storing wine at home is mostly about keeping it steadily cool. Heat speeds up the chemical reactions of aging, and repeated warming and cooling works against the cork or screwcap that keeps oxygen out. Light and vibration come next. The top of a refrigerator carries all three problems at once.

Structure

Structure describes the way acidity, tannin and body give a wine its overall feel.

Structure, not color

Red wine with meat and white wine with fish is the oldest pairing advice there is. What matters more is a wine's structure: its tannin, the drying grip like strong black tea, its acidity, sweetness and weight. Color travels loosely with structure, so the old advice works more often than chance while telling you little about the bottle.

Sugar and salt

Sweetness and saltiness each make the other harder to taste when they are in the mouth together. Sensory testing calls that mixture suppression, and it runs both ways. So a salty dish can make a sweet wine seem drier than it tastes alone, and that sweet wine can make the dish seem less salty.

Sugar building in the grape

Grapes build up sugar as they ripen. The leaves make it from sunlight and send it into the berries.

Sulfites

Sulfites are preservatives that protect wine from oxidation and spoilage.

Sulfur dioxide in the cellar

Sulfur dioxide is a preservative used in winemaking. It protects wine from air and from unwanted yeast and bacteria.

Sunburn on the fruit

Sunburn is damage to grapes from too much direct sun and heat, which can brown the skins or, in worse cases, crack and dry out the berries.

Super Tuscan

Super Tuscan is an informal name for Tuscan red wines that emerged outside traditional appellation rules, including Cabernet-based wines and Sangiovese wines made outside the Chianti rules.

Superiore rules

Superiore on an Italian label means the wine met stricter rules than the basic wine of its zone, usually a little more alcohol and a smaller harvest.

Supple

Supple describes a red wine whose drying grip feels gentle and yielding rather than stiff.

Sustainability seals

A sustainability seal shows that a vineyard, winery or wine met one program's standards, which may cover water, energy, soil and chemical use.

Sweet

Sweet describes the noticeable taste of sugar in a wine.

Sweet wine and salty food

Sweet wine with salty food is one of the oldest contrasts at the table. The salt side is measured, because sodium lowers how bitter a wine tastes. The sweetness side is a convention rather than a tested effect. Between them they explain why salty cured meat and salty cheese keep company with sweet wines and fortified ones, where spirit has been added.

Sweet wine with savory food

A dish does not have to taste like dessert to carry sugar. Glazes, caramelised onion, roast root vegetables, ketchup and many Asian sauces all add it. If the plate is sweeter than the wine, a dry wine can read as thin and hard, so a wine with a little sugar often sits better.

Sweetness against heat

A little sugar in a wine can make chili heat feel gentler. Sugar rinses have been shown to lower the burning sensation after chili, and blocking sweet taste makes the burn stronger, so the sweet sensation seems to be doing the work. How much it helps varies with the dish and the drinker.

Sweetness and spice

Aromatic spices such as cinnamon, clove, ginger and cardamom smell sweet while adding no sugar at all. That can make a completely dry wine taste lean and hard beside them. A wine with a little sugar left in it often sits more comfortably. This is aromatic warmth, not the burning heat of chilli.

Sweetness versus fruitiness

Ripe fruit smell and sugar are two different things. A wine can smell strongly of blackberry or peach and still be bone dry, because the smell comes from the grape while sweetness comes from sugar the yeast did not turn into alcohol. High alcohol adds to an impression of sweetness. Many warm-climate reds taste sweet and carry almost no sugar.

Syrupy

Syrupy describes a sweet wine that feels thick and sticky in your mouth and clings to the glass, much like syrup.

Szamorodni

Szamorodni is a Tokaji wine made from whole bunches picked as they come, so some grapes are shriveled by noble rot, a mold that concentrates their sugar, and some are not.

Sélection de grains nobles

Sélection de grains nobles, or SGN, is an Alsace category for sweet wine made from grapes affected by noble rot, a helpful mold that shrivels berries and concentrates their sugar.

T

Table grapes and wine grapes

Wine grapes are grown for making wine, while table grapes are grown for eating fresh.

Taking acid out

Deacidification means lowering a wine's acidity when it would otherwise taste too sharp.

Taking alcohol out

Alcohol removal takes the alcohol out of a finished wine, leaving a low or zero alcohol drink. Dealcoholized on a label means alcohol was taken out of the wine this way.

Tank method sparkling

The tank method makes a wine sparkling by fermenting it a second time in a large sealed tank, so the gas stays in the wine.

Tannin

Tannin is the drying sensation you feel in your mouth when drinking some wines, similar to strong black tea. It comes mainly from grape skins and seeds.

Tannin and cheese

Cheese is one of the few foods high in both fat and protein, and both can make tannin, the drying grip of a red, feel less drying. That is why a firm red often seems softer beside a piece of hard cheese. The limit is the cheese's own strength, which can bury a quiet wine.

Tar

Tar describes a dark, smoky aroma in some red wines that recalls warm asphalt.

Tart

Tart describes the sharp, sour taste of acidity, the same sensation as biting into a cranberry or an underripe plum.

Tartrate crystals

Tartrate crystals are small, glassy crystals sometimes found on the bottom of a cork or in the bottom of a bottle. They are harmless and tasteless, not pieces of glass.

Tasting again after food

Food changes wine, so the same glass tastes different after a bite. Tasting a wine alone tells you what it is, and tasting it again after a mouthful of the dish tells you whether the pairing works. Salt and fat usually make a tannic red feel gentler, and a sweet dish usually makes a dry wine taste sharper and thinner.

Tasting note

A tasting note is a written description of a wine: how it looks, what it smells and tastes like, how it feels and how long the flavors last.

Taut and tight

Tasters use taut for a wine with firm acidity and restrained fruit, so it feels tight rather than open.

Tawny

Tawny Port is a style of Port aged in wooden barrels. Slow contact with oxygen turns it amber brown and can bring flavors of caramel, dried fruit and nuts.

TCA and TBA

TCA and TBA are two closely related compounds that make wine smell musty, like damp cardboard or a cellar floor. A wine with this smell is usually called corked.

Teinturier grapes

A teinturier is a dark grape with red flesh as well as red skin, so its juice runs red. Most dark wine grapes have pale flesh and get their color mainly from their skins.

Temperature changes what you taste

Serving temperature changes how a wine reads. Cold holds the aroma compounds in the liquid, so the wine smells of less while tartness and the drying grip of tannin come forward. Warmth lifts aroma and makes alcohol more obvious. The same bottle can read as two different wines, so check temperature before blaming the wine.

Temperature controlled shipping

Temperature controlled shipping moves wine in a refrigerated container or van held at a steady cool temperature. Heat is the risk the service exists for: a container can sit for days on a hot dock, and a parcel can spend an afternoon in a warm vehicle. Warmth can push a wine along faster than its age suggests.

Temperature swings

A temperature swing is repeated warming and cooling, which is harder on a bottle than a warm but constant store. Wine expands as it warms, and the pressure can shift the cork and force a little wine past it. The signs are a sticky neck, a stained capsule or a low fill.

Tension

Tension often describes the sense of pull between a wine's acidity and its fruit or richness, making the wine feel energetic rather than soft or flat.

Tenuta

Tenuta is Italian for a large rural estate. On a wine label, it can be part of a producer or property name.

Terpenes in aromatic grapes

Terpenes are natural compounds in grapes that give some white wines floral, grapey or citrus-blossom smells.

Terra rossa soil

Terra rossa is a red-brown clay soil that forms over limestone, colored red by iron oxide. Coonawarra in South Australia is known for Cabernet Sauvignon grown on terra rossa.

Terraced vineyards

Terraced vineyards are cut into steep hillsides as a series of flat steps, often held up by stone walls. Terraces keep the soil in place and make slopes possible to farm.

Terroir

Terroir is how a vineyard's climate, soil, slope and other growing conditions shape the vine and its grapes, so wines from one place can share a recognizable character.

Tertiary character

Tertiary character is the group of aromas a wine develops with age, such as dried fruit, nuts, mushroom, leather and forest floor.

Textured

A textured wine has a noticeable feel in your mouth beyond plain liquid, such as a slightly oily, creamy or gently grainy quality.

The Asti method

Asti is the fully sparkling partner to Moscato d'Asti, from the same Moscato Bianco grapes in Piedmont and the same early stopped fermentation. The difference is pressure: Asti is taken to full sparkling strength, so it foams rather than prickles. Most is sweet, and a drier version labelled Asti Secco also exists.

The attack

The attack is your first impression of a wine as it enters your mouth.

The back label

The back label is where two very different kinds of text sit together. One kind is required by the country the bottle is sold in: a health warning, an importer, an allergen line. The other is the producer's own writing, such as a tasting note, a medal or a story about the family.

The bottling address

The bottling address is the line of small print naming the company that filled the bottle and the place it did so. Both the European Union and the United States require it, so a bottle sold in either market carries one. It is not where the grapes grew, and the two can be thousands of miles apart.

The bottling line

A bottling line is a machine that takes an empty bottle, fills it, seals it, labels it and boxes it, in under a minute. Everything that happens to the wine in its last seconds as a free liquid happens here. The main job is keeping air away from it.

The capsule

The capsule is the thin metal or plastic sleeve covering the cork and the top of a wine bottle's neck.

The carafe

A carafe is an open jug for serving wine or water at the table. A decanter is the same idea put to a job: separating a wine from its sediment, or giving it air. The difference is intent rather than shape. On a restaurant list, a carafe is usually a set measure of house wine.

The Cava rules

Cava is a Spanish sparkling wine made the same way as Champagne, with the bubbles created by a second fermentation inside the bottle.

The Classico zone

Classico on an Italian label means the grapes come from the original, historic heart of a wine zone, before the zone was expanded.

The corkscrew and its worm

The spiral on a corkscrew is called the worm, and the hinged folding model is known as a waiter's friend. The worm goes straight down the middle of the cork and the lever lifts along the cork's length. Levering sideways is what tears a cork, so the tool is worked in line with the neck.

The fat a dish is cooked in

Which fat a dish was cooked in changes how a wine tastes alongside it. In sensory testing, a spoonful of oil taken before a tannin solution made it taste less drying. Butter, cream, olive oil and duck fat all bring fat to the plate, and they also bring quite different flavors.

The fine wine market

The fine wine market is a trade name for the small part of the wine world whose bottles are regularly resold after release. It names a market segment, not a level of quality. Plenty of carefully made wine has no resale market at all. Indices built from merchant trades are how the segment is tracked.

The government warning

In the United States, alcoholic drinks containing at least 0.5 percent alcohol must carry a federally prescribed warning beginning GOVERNMENT WARNING.

The lot code

A lot code is a short mark that identifies a batch of wine, helping the producer trace affected bottles if a problem requires a recall.

The loudest thing on the plate

Pairing advice usually names the main ingredient, and on a real plate the loudest thing is often something else: a pickle, a chilli, a handful of parmesan, an anchovy, a squeeze of lemon. Find whatever you notice first and pair with that instead. A small garnish can outweigh a large piece of meat.

The mid palate

The mid palate is the middle of a sip, after the first impression and before the flavor that lingers once you swallow.

The order you taste in

Tasting in a fixed order means looking at the wine, then smelling it, then tasting it, and only then deciding what you think. Each judgment gets made before the next one can color it. Every glass is asked the same questions in the same sequence, which is what makes two wines comparable. Wine courses teach that order.

The pressing cycle

A modern press is run as a program, not a single squeeze. The machine raises pressure in steps over a few hours, and between steps it tumbles the pressed cake of skins to break it up so more liquid can escape. A slow cycle at low pressure keeps the juice cleaner.

The Prädikat ladder

Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese are German terms for how ripe the grapes were at harvest, measured by the sugar in the juice.

The release price

A release price is the figure a producer or its agent asks when a wine first goes on sale. The seller sets it, weighing how much wine there is, what it cost to make and what the previous vintage was asked for. It is an asking price rather than a reading of what the wine later changes hands for.

The Saint-Émilion classification

Saint-Émilion, in Bordeaux, ranks many of its estates as Grand Cru Classé or, above that, Premier Grand Cru Classé. The list is revised about every ten years.

The sauce, not the protein

Pairing advice usually starts from the meat or the fish. On most plates the sauce carries more fat, salt, acid and sugar than the protein does, and those are the parts shown to change how a wine tastes. So chicken under a lemon dressing and chicken in a cream sauce are two different problems.

The screwcap seal

A screwcap is an aluminum cap that screws onto the bottle neck and seals the wine without a cork. Stelvin is a well known brand.

The second fermentation

A second fermentation turns a finished still wine into a sparkling one. Sugar and yeast are added and the wine is sealed in a bottle or a pressure tank, so the gas the yeast makes stays in the wine.

The shape of the vessel

The shape of a fermenting vessel affects how the wine inside behaves, from how fast heat escapes to how the grape skins float in a red wine.

The solera system

A solera is a way of aging wine in rows of barrels, where wine drawn from the oldest barrels is replaced with younger wine from the next row.

The sorting table

A sorting table is a moving belt the picked fruit crosses before it reaches the tank, with people standing either side pulling out what should not be there. Rotten and raisined berries, leaves, bits of stalk and the occasional snail come off. A few rotten grapes can brown the juice and mute the fruit, so the belt protects the batch.

The spittoon

A spittoon is the bucket or bowl tasters spit wine into, so they can taste many wines and still judge the last one clearly.

The standard tasting glass

The standard tasting glass is the plain glass used for judging and for exams. Its bowl is a small elongated egg that narrows at the rim, on a stem and a base. The narrow opening gathers aroma above the wine, and clear glass lets color be judged. It exists so everyone assessing a wine smells from the same shape.

The sulfite added at bottling

Sulfur dioxide is the preservative a cellar uses against air and spoilage microbes. The last addition goes in at bottling, moments before the bottle is sealed, and it is the wine's whole supply for the years ahead. The level falls steadily in bottle, so too small an addition shows up as early browning.

The three aroma layers

Wine courses often sort aromas into three groups. Primary aromas come from grapes and alcoholic fermentation, secondary aromas from post-fermentation winemaking, and tertiary aromas from aging.

The three tier system

The three-tier system is the main U.S. model for alcohol sales: a producer or importer sells to a wholesaler, who sells to a shop or restaurant.

The two-pronged cork puller

A two-pronged cork puller has two thin blades that slide down either side of the cork instead of into it, then twist and lift. Because nothing pierces the cork, there is nothing to pull it apart, which makes it the tool for a cork too soft to hold a spiral. It is also called an ah-so.

The US percentage rules

In the United States, a wine label that names a grape or a place must meet a minimum share of that grape or place.

The vigna mention

Vigna is Italian for vineyard. Followed by a name on an Italian label, it marks wine from one specific, officially registered vineyard.

The vinifera species

Vitis vinifera is the European grapevine species, and nearly all well-known wine grapes belong to it, from Chardonnay to Nebbiolo.

The wire cage

The wire cage is the metal basket that holds the cork in a sparkling wine bottle. The French name is muselet.

Thick and thin skins

Skin thickness is how thick a grape's skin is. The skin contains the pigments that give red wine its color and some of the tannin that creates a drying feeling.

Thirst-quenching

Thirst-quenching describes a wine that feels especially refreshing, usually because it is light and has lively acidity.

Tightly wound

A tightly wound wine seems restrained at first, with its flavors less expressive and its acidity or tannin especially noticeable.

Time on the lees

Time on the lees is how long a sparkling wine rests with the spent yeast left in the bottle after its second fermentation.

Tinto

Tinto is Spanish and Portuguese for red wine. Vino tinto on a Spanish label, or vinho tinto on a Portuguese one, tells you the bottle holds red wine.

Toasty

Toasty describes an aroma like toasted bread or browned nuts.

Tobacco

Some red wines smell like dried tobacco leaf or an unlit cigar: earthy, dry and faintly sweet.

Too much sulfur dioxide

Too much sulfur dioxide, the preservative added to most wine, gives a sharp burnt match smell that can sting the back of your nose.

Topping up

Topping up means refilling a wooden barrel with wine as the level drops, so only a small pocket of air sits above the wine. In French it is called ouillage.

Transfer method

The transfer method makes sparkling wine with a second fermentation in bottle, then empties the bottles into a pressurized tank, filters the wine and rebottles it.

Transparent

A transparent wine is one whose flavors seem clear and unobscured, allowing its grape or growing place to come through distinctly.

Trocken, halbtrocken, feinherb

On a German wine label, trocken means dry and halbtrocken means off dry. Feinherb has no legal definition and usually ranges from off dry to mildly sweet; lieblich means medium sweet.

Tropical fruit

Tropical fruit describes aromas in wine that recall pineapple, mango, passion fruit, guava or banana.

Truffle

Truffle describes an earthy, musky aroma that recalls the underground fungus.

Trunk disease

Trunk diseases are fungi that enter a vine through pruning cuts and slowly kill the wood inside the trunk and arms. Shoots die back, then whole arms, then the vine. They cannot be cured, so growers protect the cuts and cut out dead wood. Esca and eutypa dieback are the names you meet.

Tuffeau

Tuffeau is a soft, pale limestone found in the middle of France's Loire Valley, around Saumur, Vouvray and Chinon.

Typicity and expectation

Typicity describes how closely a wine matches the characteristics commonly associated with its grape, region or style.

U

Ullage and fill level

Ullage is the air gap between the cork and the wine in a bottle. A gap larger than expected for the wine's age can be a sign of poor storage.

Umami and oak

Umami is the savory, broth-like taste in soy sauce, parmesan, mushrooms, cured meat and ripe tomato. Oak barrels can leave a wine with vanilla, toast and spice, plus a little tannin of their own. Savory food does not make that oak character harsher, and glutamate, the compound behind umami, has been shown to lower perceived bitterness.

Umami in wine

Umami is the savory taste of foods such as broth, parmesan, mushrooms and soy sauce.

Underripe

Underripe describes wine made from grapes picked before they were fully ripe.

Uneven ripening

Uneven ripening means some grapes in a bunch or vineyard are fully ripe at harvest while others are still hard and green.

V

Vacuum stoppers

A vacuum stopper is a plug with a small pump that draws air out of a part-full bottle. Less air above the wine should mean less oxygen reaching it. It cannot remove the oxygen already dissolved by pouring, and the days of freshness printed on the box come from the makers rather than independent work.

Valley floor

The valley floor is the flat land at the bottom of a wine valley. Its soils are usually deeper and richer than on the slopes, and vines there tend to grow more vigorously.

Vanilla

Vanilla describes an aroma in wine that resembles vanilla bean.

Varietal labeling minimums

A varietal labeling minimum is the share of a grape required before its name may appear on the label. For most American wines it is at least 75 percent, and in the European Union the general minimum is 85 percent.

Variety and varietal

A variety is a kind of grapevine, such as Merlot. A varietal wine is one labeled with the name of its grape.

Vegan on a label

A vegan wine was made without animal products, mainly during fining, the step where something is added to clear haze before bottling.

Velvety

Velvety describes a wine with a soft, plush texture and some weight in your mouth. It is about texture, not flavor.

Vendemmia

Vendemmia is Italian for the grape harvest. On a label, the year beside it is the year the grapes were picked.

Veraison and ripening

Veraison is the point in summer when grapes begin to soften and ripen.

Vertical tasting

A vertical tasting compares several vintages of the same wine side by side, such as one estate's Cabernet from five different years.

Vibration in storage

Vibration here means the constant small shaking that reaches bottles from a motor, a compressor or a road outside. It is said to disturb the deposit in a bottle and to speed up reactions inside it. The evidence is weak either way, and a research institute looking for published work on it reported finding none.

Villages on a label

Villages after a regional name, as in Beaujolais-Villages or Côtes du Rhône Villages, means the grapes come from a smaller group of selected villages within that region.

Vin de liqueur

Vin de liqueur is a French term for wine fortified by adding alcohol derived from wine or grapes. It includes several different styles.

Vin de paille

Vin de paille, French for straw wine, is a sweet wine made from grapes dried after picking, traditionally on straw mats.

Vin de pays

Vin de pays is an older French category for wine identified with a geographic area. Today these wines generally fall under the IGP system.

Vin doux naturel

Vin doux naturel is a sweet French wine made by adding grape spirit during fermentation, which stops the yeast and keeps some of the grape's own sugar.

Vin gris

Vin gris is a very pale rosé made from red grapes pressed straight away, so the juice spends almost no time with the colored skins.

Vin Jaune

Vin jaune, French for yellow wine, is a dry white wine from the Jura in France. It is aged for years in barrels that are never topped up, under a thin layer of yeast.

Vin Santo

Vin Santo is an Italian wine traditionally made from grapes dried after harvest. Tuscany is particularly known for its sweet, amber-colored examples.

Vin, vino and vinho

Vin means wine in French, vino in Italian and Spanish, and vinho in Portuguese.

Vine planting density

Vine density is how closely vines are planted, counted as the number of vines in a given area of vineyard.

Vine propagation

Propagation is how new vines are made, almost always by planting a cutting, a piece of cane that grows into an exact copy of its parent vine.

Vine training systems

Vine training is the shape a grower keeps a vine in: how its trunk and arms are built and whether its shoots are tied to wires.

Vine vigor

Vigor is how strongly a vine grows leaves and shoots during the season.

Vinegar in a dish

Vinegar is usually the sharpest thing on a plate, and a dressing or a pickle puts it right beside the glass. A wine less tart than the food tends to taste flat and dull by comparison. So a very sharp dish generally wants a wine with high acidity of its own, which is the tart, mouth-watering quality.

Vineyard irrigation

Vineyard irrigation means giving vines extra water, usually through drip lines along each row.

Vinho Regional

Vinho Regional is a Portuguese wine category for wine from a broad named region, with looser rules than the stricter DOC areas inside it.

Vinification

Vinification is the work of turning grapes into wine: crushing or pressing them, fermenting the juice and the choices a winemaker makes along the way.

Vino de Pago

Vino de Pago is a Spanish protected origin for wine from one named rural site. All grapes must come from that pago, and its wine must be made, stored and aged separately from other wines.

Vinous

Vinous means smelling or tasting simply of wine, with a general grapey, wine-like character rather than clear notes of a particular fruit or flower.

Vintage

The vintage is the year the grapes were picked. When a label shows a year, it is the harvest, not the year the wine was bottled or released.

Vintage and non-vintage

A vintage wine shows a harvest year on the label. A non-vintage wine has no declared harvest year, while a multi-vintage wine combines wine from several years.

Vintage charts

A vintage chart is a table showing how a critic or publication rates growing years in different wine regions.

Vintage Port

Vintage Port is a sweet, strong red wine from Portugal's Douro Valley, made from a single year's harvest and aged mainly in the bottle.

Violet

Violet describes a floral aroma that resembles the small purple flower.

Virus in vines

Vines can carry a virus for life, picked up from infected cuttings or spread by insects and soil worms. There is no cure, so an infected block is lived with or pulled out. Leafroll virus is the common one: it can slow ripening and leave fruit lower in sugar and color. Its sign is red autumn leaves on a red variety.

Viscosity and glycerol

Viscosity is how thick or flowing a wine feels in your mouth.

Viñedo Singular

Viñedo Singular, Spanish for single vineyard, is a Rioja category for wine made from one approved vineyard under stricter rules.

Volatile acidity

Volatile acidity measures the volatile acids in wine, mainly acetic acid. At noticeable levels, it can smell sharp and vinegar-like.

Volcanic soils

Volcanic soil forms from lava and ash and the rocks they harden into, such as basalt and tuff.

VOS and VORS

VOS and VORS are official age labels for Sherry. VOS certifies an average age of at least 20 years, and VORS at least 30 years.

Vrhunsko vino

Vrhunsko vino, top-quality wine, is protected wording on Croatian and Slovenian labels for wine from a named place that meets extra production rules.

W

Washed rind cheese

Washed rind cheeses are the sticky, strong-smelling ones, brushed with brine, beer or spirit as they ripen. That damp salty surface favors bacteria which produce pungent, meaty aromas and soften the paste inward. Those aromas can swamp a delicate wine, so the usual pour is a sweet or aromatic white. The direction is service convention.

Watching the ripening curve

The ripening curve is what a grower gets by sampling berries every week from the moment ripening starts and plotting the readings. Sugar climbs and acidity falls, each on its own line, and neither line is straight. The picking date is read off those lines rather than off the calendar. A heat spell bends them within days.

Water stress

Water stress is when a vine has less water available than it would use. It can slow shoot growth and, depending on timing and severity, reduce berry size.

Waxy

Waxy describes an aroma, flavor or coating texture that recalls candle wax or beeswax.

Weightless

Weightless describes a wine that has clear, intense flavor yet feels light in the mouth, with no heaviness from alcohol or sugar.

Weingut

Weingut is German for wine estate. On a German or Austrian label, it identifies the producer as a wine-growing estate.

Wet stone

Wet stone describes an aroma that recalls rain falling on rocks.

What cultivar means

Cultivar is the botanical word for a grape variety, such as Chardonnay or Merlot.

What fermentation does

Fermentation is how grape juice becomes wine: yeast eats the sugar in the juice and turns it into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas.

What language a label must use

Label language rules say which language the required text has to be in. The European Union asks for it in an official European Union language, and the United States asks for it in English. A protected place name is the exception in both: it stays in its own language, which is why a French bottle reads Bourgogne.

What lets a wine age

Aging potential is how long a wine can keep improving, or at least stay enjoyable, in the bottle. It is an estimate, not something anyone can measure.

What storage costs

Professional wine storage is charged as a running fee, usually per case for each year the wine is held. Insurance is normally separate, and withdrawing, moving or splitting a case can be charged too. The fee accrues for as long as you keep the wine, whether or not it is ever sold.

What the front label must say

The front label is the face carrying the brand name, and both the European Union and the United States decide what has to appear on it. In the European Union most of the required items have to sit in one field of vision, readable without turning the bottle. In the United States the rules single out the label carrying the brand name.

When malolactic conversion happens

Malolactic conversion is the cellar stage where bacteria turn sharper malic acid into softer lactic acid. Timing is the choice of when to let it happen: alongside the alcoholic fermentation, straight afterwards in the warm tank, or slowly in barrel over the following winter. It has to finish before bottling.

Where bitterness comes from

Bitterness is a taste, like black coffee, tonic water or walnut skins. In wine it is usually a mild note at the finish.

Where vines come from

Most growers buy their vines rather than raising them. A nursery grafts a cutting of the chosen variety onto a chosen root, grows it for a season and sells a rooted young plant. The vines are tested for virus and sold with paperwork naming the variety, the clone and the root. Orders are often placed a year or more ahead.

Which grapes may be planted

Variety registration is a country's official list of grape varieties allowed to be planted for wine. A vine has to reach that list before anyone can plant it commercially, and the lists differ from one country to the next. So a grape grown widely in Austria may not be permitted in France. Newly bred varieties wait years for it.

White Port

White Port is a fortified wine made from white grapes in Portugal's Douro Valley. It can range from fairly dry to very sweet.

White Zinfandel

White Zinfandel is a pink wine from California, made from the red Zinfandel grape. It is usually light and slightly sweet.

Whole berry

Whole berry fermentation means the grapes are taken off their stems but not crushed, so many berries go into the tank still intact.

Whole bunch fermentation

Whole-bunch fermentation means fermenting red grape clusters with their berries still attached to the stems rather than removing the stems first.

Why a glass costs what it does

A wine sold by the glass has to be poured out before the open bottle changes. The venue divides each bottle into a set number of pours and prices them so an unfinished bottle does not cost it money. That is why the by-the-glass price is not simply the bottle price divided by the pours.

Wine before the meal

An aperitif is a drink served before a meal, meant to wake up the appetite. Wines chosen for it are usually light, dry and refreshing.

Wine broker

A wine broker arranges sales between buyers and sellers for a commission without taking ownership of the wine.

Wine fridge and kitchen fridge

A wine cabinet holds one steady temperature in the cellar range behind a dark door. A kitchen fridge runs near 4 °C, dries the air and is opened all day, so the temperature inside keeps cycling. None of that ruins a bottle in a week, so a kitchen suits wine for days rather than years.

Wine fridge zones

A wine cabinet with zones holds two or more compartments at different temperatures, one set for keeping bottles and the others for serving them. Keeping wants one steady, cool setting. Serving wants white wine colder than red. A single-zone cabinet set to a cellar temperature does the keeping job and asks you to adjust before pouring.

Wine merchant

A wine merchant is a person or business that buys and sells wine. Some sell to the public through a shop or website; others trade wholesale.

Wine of Origin

Wine of Origin is South Africa's system for certifying where a wine's grapes were grown.

Wine with no origin name

Vin de France is French wine that carries no protected place name. The grapes can come from anywhere in France.

Working with a distributor

A distributor's role in one market is usually exclusive: a producer appoints one company to represent it there, and every shop and restaurant in that territory orders through that company. The salesperson who calls on the buyer carries a list of many producers at once. Changing distributor can take a wine off sale for months.

Writing it down

A tasting note is a written record of one wine. The useful kind records levels rather than a list of fruits: how tart the acidity was, how firm the drying tannin, how much body, how long the flavor lasted. Those readings still mean something a year later. Fruit words drift with your vocabulary and with the temperature of the wine.

Y

Yeast autolysis

Autolysis is the slow breakdown of dead yeast cells resting in a sparkling wine. It can give the wine bread, toast, pastry or brioche aromas and a fuller, creamier feel.

Yield and crop size

Yield is how much a vineyard produces. In Europe it is usually counted in hectoliters of wine per hectare, and in the United States in tons of grapes per acre.

Z

Zippy

Zippy is an informal tasting word for a wine with bright, lively acidity that makes your mouth water.

É

Élevage

Élevage is the work of maturing and caring for a wine after grape juice has become wine and before bottling.

Reviewed by Gina Biernacki, Certified Sommelier, WSET Level 3 with Distinction.

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