Wine Glossary

  • Acid/Acidity – Wine contains a number of different types of acids, and apart from being a natural preservative (allowing it to age), it’s what makes wine taste crisp and refreshing. Mostly found in whites but also some in reds.
  • Appellation – A specially marked out region that defines the limits of where its possible to produce a particular style of wine. Bordeaux, Chianti, Champagne, Napa Valley and Burgundy are all appellations, for instance.
  • Aroma – the varietal smell of a wine.
  • Balance – Wine is a sum of its parts – fruit, oak, acid, flavor, alcohol and tannin mainly, and these should all work together with no one thing dominating.
  • Blind Tasting – a tasting of wines at which the labels and shapes of the bottles are concealed from the tasters.
  • Body – The weight and structure of a wine.
  • Bouquet – Like ‘aroma’, bouquet simply refers to the range of things that you can smell in a wine – mainly fruit and oak aromas as it matures.
  • Cask – wooden barrel, usually make of oak, used for fermentation, maturation and storage of wines. Traditional sizes and names vary from region to region.
  • Cat’s Pee – a musky smell of cat’s urine that is often found in Sauvingnon Blanc wines, that is usually not a negative adjective.
  • Château (French) – a French term for a wine-growing property – chiefly used in Bordeaux.
  • Claret – Another name for red Bordeaux, mainly used in England.
  • Corked – a term used to describe a wine ‘fault’ caused by a cork infected with bacteria that imparts a cork smell and taste to the wine. It smells like wet cardboard and taste like mushrooms.
  • Côte – a French term that means, ‘hillside’ of vineyards.
  • Cru – a French term that means ‘Growth’ or ‘Vineyard’.
  • Cru Classé – Classed Growth, especially those 61 red wines of the Médoc (and one from Graves) in Bordeaux that were graded into five categories determined by price (and therefore in theory, quality) in 1855.
  • Cuvée – a French terms that means ‘blended’ or a specially selected wine.
  • Decanter – glass container into which red wines and ports are decanted to allow them to ‘breathe’ or to separate them from their sediment.
  • Domaine – a French term for a property or estate
  • Dry – a tasting term that refers to the absence of noticeable sugar or sweet taste in wine.
  • Fermentation – the natural process of converting sugar (in grapes) into alcohol, by the action of the yeast enzymes. The more sugar there is in a grape when it’s picked, the higher the potential alcohol.
  • Finish – The intensity of flavours left in your mouth once you’ve swallowed the wine. Some finishes can last for minutes.
  • Fortified Wine – a wine, such as port, sherry or Madeira to which alcohol has been added to stop it from fermenting before all its sugars are turned into alcohol and/or simply to strengthen it.
  • Funky – a tasting term used to describe a wine that has an ‘earthy/animal’ edge to it. Sometimes referred to as the ‘barnyard’ smell.  Not necessarily seen as a negative character, although too much ‘funk’ can throw a wine out of balance.
  • Flabby – a tasting term that describes a wine that lacks balance and structure due to low acidity.
  • Fruity – a tasting term to describe the presence of a fruit flavor or taste in the wine – not to be confused with being sweet.
  • Grassy – a tasting term that describes a ‘herbaceous’ smell or taste in win – similar to fresh cut grass
  • Grand Cru – a French terms for top-quality wine, used especially in Bordeaux and Burgundy.
  • Irrigation – The supply of water to the vine by means of artificial canals, overhead sprays, or drip-irrigation systems on individual vines. Irrigation is forbidden in European Community countries with any classification, but is widely used in other countries
  • Legs – some wines will cling to the glass when the wine is ‘swirled’ and some wine will appear thinner and less viscous – this is known as the wine’s ‘legs’ and indicates how much glycerol (and indication of alcohol) in a wine. Legs does not indicate anything or have any bearing whatsoever on the overall quality of the wine.
  • Lees – The dead yeast that floats to the bottom of the wine during and after fermentation. It is sometimes stirred up – particularly in Chardonnay, which ends up giving the wine some good nutty, cream flavors. It is removed prior to bottling.
  • Maceration – period of time when the skins are in contact with the fermenting must during red wine vinification.
  • Meritage – American name for a red wine made with a blend of the classic Bordeaux grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc (plus, sometimes, Petit Verdot).
  • Magnum – A large format wine bottle that holds 1,500ml or the same amount as two standard wine bottles.
  • Minerally – a tasting term used to describe a wine’s smell or taste, that reflects any ‘mineral’ qualities, such as magnesium and potassium. Most often used with white wine.
  • Must – Unfermented grape juice destined to become wine.
  • Nobel Rot – a benevolent form of Botrytis cinera, a fungus that causes the skins of the grapes to leak moisture, which concentrates the sugars of ripe grapes, facilitating the production of the finest sweet wines.
  • Non-Vintage (NV) – a term applied to any wine that is a blend of two or more different vintages – notably champagne and port.
  • Nose – The overall sense given off by a wine on being smelled. Its not just the wines scent, the nose also conveys the wine’s well being and alcohol level.
  • Oily – a tasting term referring to a kind of texture that a wine has in your mouth. Sometimes referred to as ‘buttery’.
  • Oak – Wines (red and white) often spend time ageing in oak barrels, which adds a spicy, toasty or vanilla flavour.
  • Oxidized – a term used to describe wine that has deteriorated owing to overlong exposure to air.
  • Phylloxera – The most important (and nasty) insect pest of the vine. It feeds on the roots of the European vines and in most cases will kill it.  There is no known way of eradicating the louse but its effect can be stopped by grafting the European vines (vitas vinifera) onto American root stock.
  • Pruning – Removal of unwanted parts of the vine, mostly wood that is one year old or less, in order to regulate grape yield, and control the shape.  Usually done in the vine’s dormant period of winter.
  • Punt – this is the indentation in the bottom of a bottle, particularly prominent in Champagne and sparkling wine bottles and is designed to strengthen the glass against internal pressure.
  • Rouge – a French term meaning ‘Red’
  • Sediment – the deposit that forms after a wine has spent a lengthy period in the bottle.
  • Sommelier – a wine waiter that should have extensive knowledge of wine and what food to pair wine with.
  • Short – a tasting term that means the flavor of the wine finishes very quickly in your mouth after tasting it.
  • Structure – Tannin and acidity provide the skeleton on which a wine’s fruit flavours hang. Without them, it just taste like grape juice.
  • Tannin – a chemical compound and type of acid found in red wines, which comes from grape skins, grape pips and wood that adds structure to the wine. You cannot smell or taste tannin but it is that really dry feeling that you get in the back of your mouth after a big drink of red wine. Tannin is a preservative in red wine, allowing it to age for years.
  • Terroir (te-wah) – a French word that describes the place where the wine is made – a somewhat abstract work that represents the combination of (geography, climate and soil). More specifically, it is the plot of land where the grapes are grown, sun, soil, sea, wind, rain, drainage, plants, animals, people. These combinations make the wines taste as they do.
  • Varietal/Variety – Refers to the type of grape used to make the wine. Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Merlot are all grape varietals or grape varieties.
  • Vin de Table – a French term for ‘table wine’.
  • Vino da Tavola – an Italian term for ‘table wine’.
  • Vino de Mesa – a Spanish term for ‘table wine’.
  • Vinification – making wine.
  • Viticulture – grape growing
  • Vintage – The year of the growing, picking and making of the wine is the vintage year. Some years are better than other years depending on the grape growing  climate and the wine maker.
  • Woody – a term used to describe the smell of oak in a wine. Winemakers can request the level of ‘toasting’ or how long the barrel spends over the fire once it’s assembled, depending on how much influence or ‘woody flavour’, they want in the final wine.