Widely used in filtration, is a naturally occuring, highly porous, chalky textured sedimentary rock made mainly of silica and consisting of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae.
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.
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.
Important commercial centre on the River Saône and capital of the Mâconnais dynamic district of Burgundy which produces considerable quantities of white wine and some red.
The practice of adding spirits, usually grape spirit, to wine to ensure microbiological stability, thereby adding alcoholic strength and precluding any further fermentation.
Progressive winemaking operation which removes suspended and insoluble material from grape juice, or new wine, in which these solids are known as lees.
Microscopic, single-celled fungi, having round to oval cells which reproduce by forming buds, are vital to the alcoholic fermentation process, which, starved of oxygen, transforms grape juice to wine.
Named after the principal town of Nuits-St-Georges, this is the northern half of the escarpment of the Côte d'Or, producing the greatest red wines of Burgundy, from the Pinot Noir grape, and very occasional white wines.
Very large group of highly reactive chemical compounds of which phenol is the basic building block. These include many natural colour pigments such as the anthocyanins of fruit and dark-skinned grapes, most natural vegetable tannins such as occur in grapes, and many flavour compounds.
Italian term meaning literally "repassed", for the technique of adding extra flavour, and alcohol, to Valpolicella by refermenting the young wine on the unpressed skins of Amarone wines after these dried-grape wines have finished their fermentation in the spring, and racked off.
Winemaking operation of breaking open the grape berry so that the juice is more readily available to the yeast for fermentation and to increase the pulp and skin contact.
Of a wine is ist total concentration of volatile acids, those naturally occuring organic acids of wines that are separable by distillation. Wine's most common volatile acid by far is acetic acid (more than 96%).
The result of breeding a new variety by crossing two vine varieties. If the varieties are of the same species, usually the European vinifera species, then the result may also be knowm a an intraspecific cross - Müller-Thurgau would be one example.
