Wine terminology B e t a

A

Acidity

The tart, mouth-watering component that gives wine its freshness and its structure.

Appellation

A legally defined wine-growing area, with rules about what may be grown there and how.

Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC)

France's top appellation tier — a protected place-name with rules on grapes, yields and method.

Appellation d'Origine Protégée (AOP)

The EU-harmonised French name for AOC — France's PDO category, on wine and food alike.

Assemblage

The French term for blending — choosing the final composition of a wine from its component lots.

Aszú

Hungary's great sweet wine — botrytised berries kneaded into a base wine and measured in puttonyos.

Auslese

German for 'select harvest' — hand-picked ripe bunches, often with some botrytis, usually sweet.

B

Bâtonnage

Stirring the settled lees back through a maturing wine to build texture and body.

Beerenauslese

Berry-by-berry selection of botrytised grapes — Germany's rich, rare, honeyed dessert wine.

Biodynamic

Organic farming plus a lunar calendar and nine prepared field sprays, following Rudolf Steiner.

Blending

Combining different wines — varieties, parcels, vessels or vintages — into the finished article.

Botrytis

Botrytis cinerea — grey rot when it goes wrong, noble rot and the world's great sweet wines when it goes right.

Bouquet

The aromas a wine develops with age, as opposed to the primary smells of the fruit.

Brettanomyces

A spoilage yeast that gives wine barnyard, plaster and smoked-meat aromas — a fault in quantity, a signature in trace.

Budburst

The moment in spring when the vine's buds swell and open — and the frost clock starts.

C

Chaptalisation

Adding sugar to the must before fermentation to raise the final alcohol — not to sweeten the wine.

Classico

The historic heart of an Italian appellation — the original zone, before the boundaries were widened.

Clone

A vine propagated from a single parent, selected for a specific trait — same variety, different personality.

Cork

The bark of the cork oak, shaped into a closure — still the default seal for wines meant to age.

Corked wine

Wine tainted by TCA from a faulty cork — damp cardboard, wet dog, and stripped-out fruit.

Cru Bourgeois

A Médoc classification for good châteaux outside the 1855 list — relaunched in 2020 with three tiers.

Cru Classé

A classified growth — most famously the 61 Médoc châteaux ranked in five tiers in 1855.

Crushing

Breaking the grape skins to release the juice, usually right after destemming.

Cuvée

A specific batch or blend of wine — and, in Champagne, the first and best press fraction.

D

DAC

Districtus Austriae Controllatus — Austria's origin-and-typicity appellations.

Decanting

Pouring wine off its sediment, and into contact with air, before serving.

Denominación de Origen Calificada (DOCa)

Spain's top appellation tier — held by Rioja and Priorat alone.

Denominación de Origen (DO)

Spain's main quality appellation — a named region governed by its own regulatory council.

Denominazione di Origine Controllata (DOC)

Italy's mainstream PDO tier — a named zone with rules on grapes, yields and ageing.

Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG)

Italy's strictest appellation tier — a DOC with tighter rules, a tasting panel and a numbered neck seal.

Disgorgement

Ejecting the frozen plug of lees from a sparkling wine bottle after riddling.

Dormancy

The vine's winter shutdown — no leaves, no growth, and the window for pruning.

Dosage

The sugar-and-wine mixture added to sparkling wine after disgorgement — what sets Brut, Extra Brut or Doux.

E

Eiswein

Wine from grapes frozen solid on the vine, pressed while frozen so the water stays behind as ice.

Eszencia

The free-run juice of botrytised Tokaj berries — sweeter than anything else in wine, and barely fermentable.

F

Fermentation

Yeast converting grape sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide — the reaction that makes wine wine.

Flabby

A wine that lacks the acidity to hold itself up — soft, dull and short on the finish.

Flor

The living veil of yeast that grows on Fino Sherry, protecting it from oxygen and making it tangy.

Flowering

When the vine's tiny flowers open and self-pollinate — six to thirteen weeks after budburst.

Fortification

Adding grape spirit to wine — raising the alcohol and, if done mid-ferment, leaving it sweet.

Fruit set

When fertilised flowers turn into hard green berries — the moment the crop size is fixed.

G

Grand Cru

France's top vineyard classification — but it means something different in each region.

H

Horizontal tasting

Tasting several different wines from the same vintage, to isolate producer and site.

I

Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP)

France's PGI tier — big regional areas, wide grape choice, and the successor to Vin de Pays.

Indicazione Geografica Tipica (IGT)

Italy's PGI tier — flexible, regional, and the home of the Super Tuscans.

Inert maturation

Ageing wine in a vessel that keeps oxygen out — stainless steel, and the fresh, fruity style it protects.

K

Kabinett

The lightest rung of Germany's Prädikat ladder — delicate, low in alcohol, often gently off-dry.

L

Landwein

Germany's country-wine tier — the PGI level, from broad regions, usually dry or off-dry.

Late harvest

Grapes picked well after normal ripeness, for extra sugar and concentration.

Lees

The sediment left after fermentation — dead yeast, grape fragments and tartrates.

Legs

The rivulets that run back down the glass after you swirl — a clue to alcohol and sugar, not to quality.

M

Maceration

Steeping the juice or wine on the grape skins to extract colour, tannin and flavour.

Malolactic conversion

Bacteria turning sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid — the process behind buttery Chardonnay.

Maturation

The deliberate ageing of wine before bottling — in oak, steel, concrete or amphora.

Meritage

A trademarked American name for a Bordeaux-style blend that can't legally be called Bordeaux.

N

Natural wine

Wine made with minimal intervention and little or no added sulfur — a philosophy, not a legal category.

Nouveau

Wine released within weeks of harvest — light, fruity, and built to be drunk immediately.

O

Oenology

The science of wine and winemaking — everything that happens once the fruit reaches the cellar.

Old vine

Fruit from mature vines — lower-yielding, more concentrated, and almost entirely unregulated as a claim.

Oxidation

What oxygen does to wine — helpful in small, controlled doses, ruinous in large ones.

Oxidative maturation

Ageing wine with deliberate oxygen contact — usually in wood — to build nutty, spicy complexity.

P

Packaging

Bottling and everything around it — closure, glass weight, label, and the alternatives to a bottle.

Phylloxera

The root-feeding aphid that destroyed Europe's vineyards in the 19th century — and the reason vines are grafted.

Prädikatswein

Germany's top quality tier, subdivided by the ripeness of the grapes at harvest — and never chaptalised.

Premier Cru

A ranked vineyard just below Grand Cru in Burgundy — but the top rank in Bordeaux's 1855 list.

Pressing

Squeezing juice or wine out of the grape solids — gently, and in fractions.

Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)

The EU's top origin category — every step of production must happen in the named place.

Protected Geographical Indication (PGI)

The EU's looser origin category — a bigger area, wider grape choice, 85% of fruit from the region.

Punt

The dimple in the base of a wine bottle — structural history, not a quality mark.

Q

Qualitätswein

Germany and Austria's mainstream quality tier — from one named region, and chaptalisation is allowed.

R

Racking

Moving wine off its sediment into a clean vessel, leaving the lees behind.

Residual sugar

The grape sugar left unfermented in the finished wine — what makes it taste sweet.

Riddling

Gradually tilting and turning sparkling wine bottles to work the lees down into the neck.

Ripening

The final run to harvest — sugar up, acid down, tannins and flavours developing.

Riserva

An Italian wine aged longer than its appellation's minimum — the length set by each DOC.

S

Sabrage

Opening a Champagne bottle by striking off the neck with a blade, along the glass seam.

Sekt

German sparkling wine — from industrial tank-method bulk to serious traditional-method Winzersekt.

Sélection de Grains Nobles

Alsace's botrytis sweet wine — individually selected noble-rotted berries, tightly regulated.

Sommelier

The wine specialist on a restaurant floor — buying, listing, serving and matching wine to what's being eaten.

Spätlese

German for 'late harvest' — the second Prädikat rung: riper grapes, fuller wine, dry or sweet.

Sur lie (lees ageing)

Ageing a wine on its lees to build texture, complexity and protection from oxygen.

T

Tannin

The drying, grippy compounds from grape skins, seeds, stems and oak that give red wine its structure.

Terroir

The complete natural and human context of a vineyard — soil, climate, site and tradition — as it shows up in the glass.

Trockenbeerenauslese

Germany's sweetest wine — shrivelled, botrytised berries picked one by one, sometimes barely fermenting at all.

U

Ullage

The empty space between wine and closure — in a bottle, a barrel or a tank.

Uncorking

Opening a bottle — cutting the capsule, drawing the cork cleanly, and not shooting anything across the room.

V

Varietal

A wine labelled by its main grape — and, loosely, the grape variety itself.

VDP

Germany's association of top estates, which classifies by vineyard site rather than must weight.

VDP.Grosses Gewächs (GG)

A dry wine from a VDP-classified Grosse Lage site — Germany's answer to grand cru.

Vendanges Tardives

Alsace's regulated late-harvest category — very ripe grapes, and not always a sweet wine.

Véraison

The turning point when berries soften and change colour, and ripening proper begins.

Vertical tasting

Tasting several vintages of the same wine, to isolate vintage variation and ageing.

Vin de France

France's base tier — no region named, but grape and vintage allowed, and no rules to break.

Vin de Pays

France's retired country-wine tier, replaced by IGP in 2009 — but still seen on older bottles.

Vino de la Tierra

Spain's PGI tier — country wine from broad areas, with far more freedom than a DO.

Vintage

The year the grapes were harvested — and, on sparkling and fortified labels, a declaration of quality.

Viticulture

The growing of grapes for wine — everything that happens before the fruit reaches the winery.

Volatile acidity

Acetic acid and ethyl acetate in wine — vinegar and nail polish at high levels, lift and complexity at low ones.