Frequently Used Wine Terms

Frequently Used (and Sometimes Confusing) Wine Terms

Acidity: One of the principal components of wine. It’s what makes wine refreshing to drink. For white wines, it is the backbone upon which it ages. It is often measured by pH, but Titratable Acidity is a more accurate measure to predict how tart we experience the wine.

Biodynamic: More of an ethos or concept than an easily-defined term. Biodynamic farming considers the earth to be a living organism, and considers spiritual and cosmic considerations in addition to organic practices. Soils, livestock, the lunar cycle, homeopathic concoctions, and low-intervention winemaking are all parts of biodynamic winemaking. Demeter is the primary certifying body for biodynamic wines. Not all biodynamic producers get certified however, as it adds cost to the wine.

Botrytis: Technically, Botrytis cinerea. A fungus that destroys grapes when left unchecked. In some conditions, namely damp mornings and sunny afternoons, especially ones with a breeze, Botrytis punctures the grape, causing it to lose water, which helps concentrate sugar, acid, and aroma molecules. Many magnificent dessert wines are made from botrytized grapes. Affected grapes look kind of like raisins and must be hand-picked by well-trained harvest workers.

Bouquet: The nose of the wine. It’s what we get when we take a whiff, but really, a bouquet becomes more pronounced retronasally, meaning after it’s in our mouths.

Brut: Just means ‘dry.’ We most often see it on sparkling wine, especially Champagne (though it can be used for other wine styles, too). Brut technically isn’t the most dry a wine can be, but generally the amount of residual sugar (RS) it might have will be masked by acidity. Confusingly, “Extra Brut” means less dry rather than more.

Cellaring: A romantic way to describe ageing or maturing wine after it’s bottled. This might happen at the winery, a restaurant/bar, or your house. Historically, people stored their wine in cellars. Today, most people use a wine fridge these days, but “fridging a wine” hasn’t caught on for some reason.

Corked: This is what happens when trichloroanisole (more commonly known as TCA) destroys a bottle of wine. Initially, TCA destroys fruit aromas and flavors. If given enough time the wine will take on wet cardboard or wet dog aroma instead. Affected wines are called ‘corked’ because TCA is transmitted through the wine cork. TCA used to be a frequent problem, but technological strides have reduced the rate of corked wines significantly.

Cru: French for “growth.” Most commonly understood in the context of Premier Cru (First Growth) or Grand Cru (Great Growth). Crus are uniquely French, though used in different ways throughout France (nothing can ever be straightforward with French wine!) Other countries have similar methods of classifying wine plots. For instance, Grosses Gewächs from the VDP in Germany or the Menzione Geografica Aggiuntiva (MGA) used for Barolo DOCG wines.

Fermentation: The process by which yeasts consume sugar and create alcohol (mostly ethanol) and carbon dioxide,. It’s how we get wine!

Finish: When we speak of a wine’s finish, we’re talking about our experience of a wine after we swallow it. A wine’s finish can be an indication of quality. Especially amazing wines might evolve on our palates for quite some time. These wines really make life magical.

Grand Cru: From the French for Great Growth. Used in various French regions, but carries the highest status of wines in Burgundy.

Lees: Mostly dead yeasts, but includes other precipitate created during winemaking. Wines may be aged on the lees (sur lie), racked off the lees (the wine is separated from the lees), or aged on the lees with occasional stirring of the lees (bâttonage).

Magnum: Double the standard bottle of wine, so 1.5 liters. Wines in magnums are often prized by people at parties or collectors, as wine in magnums ages slower than wines in the standard 750 mL bottle. They also look really cool to open  – there’s something magnanimous about opening a magnum.

Malolactic Fermentation (aka Malo or MLF): A fermentation process in which yeasts convert sharp malic acid (the same acid as in apples) into softer lactic acid (the acid in dairy). Most red wines go through MLF. Some white wines do. In red wines, we generally don’t notice any aromas. In white wines, MLF can impart cheesy or buttery notes.

Maturation: Wines are sometimes matured at the winery, before they are bottled. This can happen in wooden vessels (usually oak) or stainless tanks. Small amounts of oxygen get into the wine which catalyzes other reactions that change the wine (generally) in a good way. Some wine styles, such as Sherry, rely on extended maturation times. As mentioned above, you can also mature wine after it’s been bottled.

Minerality: I have an article dedicated to it. It’s something wine drinkers generally love, but much like love itself, find hard to define. Personally, I find it more of a sense or sensation than a flavor, per se.

Mouthfeel: Does anyone like this word? Is there a better option? Mouthfeel describes how a wine feels in your mouth. Is it viscous, astringent, velvety? It’s a hard word to avoid and one that may ostracize you when you use.

Non-Vintage: Most high volume wines are non-vintage and some wine styles are non-vintage by default (most sparkling wines are NV unless otherwise specified, as are most Port, Sherry, and Madeira). Vintages are more important in regions where there’s greater annual weather variation. Other wine styles, such as Port, only declare vintages in exceptional years. Local laws will dictate how much wine has to be from that vintage in order for the year to be on the bottle, but as a rule, it’s the overwhelming majority, if not 100%.

Oak: The most common, but not the only, type of wood in which wine is fermented or matured. French and American are the most common types of oak used. New oak imparts various aromas and flavors to the wine. Vanilla, cinnamon, cloves are common in French oak, whereas American oak imparts more coconut aromas. Oak barrels can run around $1,000/barrel, so new barrels are often only used for higher-priced wines, and often only 25-30% of the wine will be matured in oak. After the first use, the oak imparts fewer aromas, but still allows for gentle oxygenation of the wine. By the fourth use, there’s generally no more aroma or flavor imparted on the wine.

Premier Cru: From the French for First Growth. See cru above.

Residual Sugar (RS): The amount of sugar remaining in the wine after fermentation. Most dry wines will have a tiny, mostly undetectable amount of sugar in them. Most people can’t detect less than 5 grams of RS, and high acidity can mask even higher levels. Fun test: if you’re unsure if a wine has RS, pinch your nose when you take a sip and see if you can taste sweetness. Sweet is most easily detected at the tip of the tongue.

Tannin: Tiny polyphenols that live in grape skins, stems, seeds, and in oak. Lots of foods have tannins (chocolate, tea, coffee). Their primary function is to protect the plant from a famished animal eating too many of its seeds. In wine, they are a major structural component of red and orange wines. Not so important in most white or rosé wines. I have an article dedicated to tannins because they are complicated little things and not completely understood.

TCA: See Corked.

Titratable Acidity: TA measures all of the acidity in a wine. (pH measures free hydrogen ions in the wine.) To measure TA, a winemaker adds a base to a sample of the wine until it neutralizes. From there, she can compare it to a known entity and derive the TA. While TA and pH are often (but not always) correlated, they are not equally good measures. TA is a better measure of acidity as it is more closely correlated to how humans perceive the wine.

Vintage: A specific year of a harvest. Vintages are more important in areas where there is significant change in weather from year to year. Places like Port only declare vintages in excellent years (though they’re becoming more common with climate change). Some wine collectors memorize the top vintages from prized wine regions such as Bordeaux or Burgundy.