Widely used French term for a specialist wine waiter or wine steward. The sommelier's job is to ensure that any wine ordered is served correctly and, ideally, to advise on the individual characteristics of every wine on the establishment's wine list and on food and wine matching.
The general term used by winemakers to describe the harmless crystalline deposits that separate from wines during fermentation and ageing. The principal component of this deposit is potassium acid tartrate, the potassium salt of tartaric acid, which has therefore given rise to the name.
Affects vines when air temperatures are high. Very high daytime temperatures, of more than 40°C/104°F, cause the vine to "shut down", or virtually cease photosynthesis, as the enzymes responsible can no longer work. High temperatures also lead to water stress, especially when accompained by bright sunshine, low humidity, and strong, dry winds.
Also known as Vin du Glacier or Gletscherwein in German, is a local speciality in the Val Anniviers near Sierre in the Valais in Switzerland. The white wine, traditionally made of the now obscure Rèze vine, comes from communally cultivated vines and is stored at high elevations in casks refilled just once a year on a solera system.
Nebulous Italian term usually denoting a wine given extended ageing before release, and suggesting a higher quality, and a higher percentage of alcohol than the normal version of the same wine. The ageing requirement for Riservas varies from DOC to DOC, but normally is a minimum of one year, up to 62 months for Barolo Riserva. In many cases this must include a period in cask, aswell as in bottle.
The principal milk protein, is used by winemakers as a fining agent particularly useful for removing brown colours from white wines. It is used also in the clarification of young wines.
The most important, and variable, appellation in the southern Rhône in terms of quality, producing mainly rich, spicy, full-bodied red wines which can be some of the most alluring expressions of warm-climate viticulture, but can also be either impossibly tannic or disappointingly jammy.
Term used as France's shorthand for the country's finest dry sparkling wines made outside Champagne using the traditional method of sparkling winemaking.
Ouillage in French, the operation of refilling any sort of wooden container to replace wine lost through evaporation. The container should be kept full or nearly full.
Traditional Bordeaux measure of wine volume, once a large woodes cask holding 900 lit., or 252 imperial wine gallons, the equivalent of four barriques.
Large and prosperous village in the Côte de Beaune district of Burgundy's Côte d'Or producing mostly white wines from the Chardonnay grape. Although Meursault contains no Grand Cru vineyards, the quality of white burgundy from Meursault's best Premier Crus is rarely surpassed.
The lightest in terms of must weight and alcohol among the trio of dry white wine categories in Austria's Wachau region-specifically for unchaptalaized grapes of 73 to 83° Oechsle which result in wines no more than 11% alcohol. The name comes from a feathery grass species indigenous to the local vineyard terraces.
The higher, southern part of the Médoc district of Bordeaux which includes the world-famous communes of Margaux, Pauillac, St-Estèphe and St-Julien, as well as the less glamorous ones of Listrac and Moulis.
Is the name used by winemakers for a thick liquid that is neither grape juice nor wine but the intermediate, a mixture of grape juice. Stem fragments, grape skins, seeds, and pulp that comes from the crusher-destemmer that smashes grapes at the start of the winemaking process.
