Wine request: Nuits St. Georges "La Perriere" 1er Cru blanc, Domaine Henri Gouges (2018), 75 cl.

F –

Federweisser

German term for young wine popularly consumed before botteling-generally cloudy and often still fermenting-and typically referred to in Austria as Sturm or Heuriger.

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A –

Ausbruch

German-language equivalent of the Hungarian Aszu, traditionally designating sweet wines made from botrytized grapes.

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C –

chambré

French word also used in English to describe a wine that has been deliberately warmed to room temperature before serving.

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B –

Beaumes-de Venise

Most famous for ist unusually fragrant, sweet, pale gold vin doux naturel named Beaumes-de-Venise.

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T –

TBA

Understandably common abbreviation for Trockenbeerenauslese

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C –

cépage

French for vine variety. A varietal wine, one that is sold by the name of the principal variety from which it is made.

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S –

soutirage

French term for racking, or moving clear wine off ist sediment and into a clean container. It can also be used for the wine serving process of decanting.

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E –

estate wine

Term in common parlance, but not in federal law, in the US that suggests loosely that the wine came entirely from grapes farmed on the winery's own property.

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C –

château

May be French for castle but in wine parlance it usually means a vine-growing, winemaking estate.

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W –

whole-bunch pressing

White winemaking technique wheereby the grapes are not subjacted to destemming and bunches of ripe grapes are pressed whole, with the stems used as conduits for what can often be particularly viscous juice.

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C –

collage

French term for fining.

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F –

fining

Winemaking process with the aim of clarification and stabilization of a wine whereby a fining agent, one of a range of special materials, is added to coagulate or adsorb and precipitate quickly the colloids suspended in it.

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A –

ascorbic acid

Vitamin C, one of the first vitamins to be discovered, and a winemaking additiv used chiefly as an antioxidant.

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F –

filtration

Fundamental but controversial winemaking process, a means of clarification involving the removal of solid particles from a wine.

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P –

premier cru

Or premier cru classé, is a cru judged of the first rank, usually according to some official classification. The direct translation of the French term premier cru, much used in the context of Bordeaux, is first growth. In Burgundy, scores of vineyards are designated premiers crus, capable of producing wine distinctly superior to village wine but not quite so great as the produce of the grands crus.

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N –

noble rot

Sometimes simply as botrytis, is the benevolent form of botrytis bunch rot, in which the Botrytis cinerea fungus attacks ripe, undamaged white wine grapes and, given the right weather, can result in extremely sweet grapes.

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B –

brut

Adapted by the champagne industry for wines made without (much) added sweetening or dosage. The upper limit for the resiudual sugar of a brut champagne has been reduced from 15 to 12 g/l.

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B –

Blanc Fumé

Is a French synonm for Sauvignon Blanc, notably in Pouilly-sur-Loire, centre of the Pouilly-Fumé, or Blanc Fumé de Pouilly, appellation, many of whose aromatic dry whites do indeed have a smoky, if not exactly smoked, perfume.

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N –

négociant

French term for a merchant and one used particularly of wine merchants who by in grapes, must or wine.

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R –

remuage

Is French for the riddling process. A person or machine that performs remuage is a remueur.

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T –

toasting

Given to a barrel towards the end of the process of forming it over a heat source.

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Q –

quartz

Silicon dioxide (silica), a very common rock-forming mineral. It is seen as glassy, colourless grains in rocks such as granite and sandstone, producing sandy soils of low fertility. It also occurs as opaque white veins filling gashes in bedrocks, which weathering loosens into fragments that become the milky white pebbles seen in many vineyards soils.

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W –

Weissherbst

Is by German law a rosé wine at least 95% of which is made by direct pressing of a single red wine grape variety named on the label (Spätburgunder and Portugieser are especially common).

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S –

sur lie

French term meaning "on the lees", customarily applied to white wines whose principal deviation from everyday white winemaking techniques was some form of lees contact.

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T –

terroir

Much-discussed term for the total natural evironment of any viticultural site. Major components of terroir are soil, and local topography, macroclimate, mesoclimate and microclimate.

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