Italian term applied to DOC wines which are deemed superior because of their higher minimum alcoholic strength, usually by a half or one per cent, a longer period of ageing before commercial release, or a lower maximum permited yield, or all three.
In the dialect of the north west Italian region of Piemonte, indicates the highest part of an elevation in the landscapeor, in particular, a vineyard with a steep gradient at the top of a hill.
Is a complex of sensations resulting from the shrinking, drawing, or puckering of the tissues of the mouth. The most important astringent materials are tannins.
French term meaning "bled" for a winemaking technique which results in a rosé wine made by running off, or "bleeding", a certain amount of free-run juice from just-crushed dark-skinned grapes after a short, prefermentation maceration.
Literally "individual site" in the wine regions of Germany. Almost all of Germany's vineyards are officially registered as one of these approximately 2600 Einzellagen, which can vary in size from a fraction of 1 ha to more than 200 ha/494 acres. As in Burgundy, for example, the Einzellagen may be divided among many different owners.
A fortified wine made by adding brandy to arrest fermenting grape must which results in a wine, red and sometimes white, that is both sweet and high in alcohol.
Sometimes known as grey mould and sometimes just rot, the malevolent form of botrytis bunch rot and one of the most harmful of the fungal disease that attack vines. In this undesirable bunch rot form, the botrytis cinerea fungus rapidly spreads throughout the berry flesh and the skin breaks down.
The greatest wine of Sauternes and, according to the famous 1855 classification, of the entire Bordeaux region it is sweet, golden, and apparently almost immortal.
Town north of Perpignan in southern France that gives ist name to two of the biggest appellations of Roussillon, Rivesaltes and Muscat de Rivesaltes, both of them vins doux naturels.
