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Topics in Wine
R –
ripasso
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.
P –
phenolics
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.
B –
barrel types
Before concrete, stainless steel, and other inert materials replaced wood as the most common material for wine fermentation vessels and storage containers in the 1960s, each wine region had ist own legion of barrel types. Even today such terms as feuillette, tonneau, and fudre may be used to measure volumes of wine long after the actual containers themselves have been abandoned.
P –
Prosecco
Extremely popular sparkling wine made in the region of Veneto, located north-east of Italy. The DOC was once an IGT. To ensure that no one outside the region was able to jump on the luctrative Prosecco bandwagon, the grape variety was renamed Glera in 2009, and Prosecco was registered as a protected denomination of origin DOC.
Q –
QbA
Qualitätswein is what POD wines are called in German. This is Germany's largest and lowest wine category and in practice includes all those wines once known as QbA. The grapes must originate in one of Germany's 13 official wine regions and reach minimum must weights.
A –
AC or AOC
Stands for Appellation d'Origine Contrôllée, France's famous denomination for ist best wines, sometimes known as Appellation Contrôlée.
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.
V –
B –
botrytis bunch rot
A fungal diseases which has the greatest potential effect on wine quality. The malevolent form is grey rot, the benevolent form is noble rot.
D –
C –
E –
Einzellage
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.
T –
tannins
Diverse and comples group of chemical compounds that occur in the bark of many trees and in fruits, including the grape.
P –
potassium
One of the macronutriments required by the vine for healthy growth, along with nitrogen and phosphorus.
B –
BIN
Traditional term for a collection of wine bottles, normally stacked horizontally on top of each other, or the process of so storing, or binning, them.
C –
S –
St-Aubin
Village in the Côte de Beaune district of Burgundy's Côte d'Or tucked out of the limelight between Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet. A high production, two-thirds, of the vineyards area is designated premier cru, notably Les Charmois, La Chantenière, En Remilly and Les Murgers Dents de Chien.
B –
bunch rots
Occur in vines all over the world and can be caused by many species of funghi including yeasts and bacteria.
P –
passerillage
French word for the process by which passerillé grapes are dried, shrivelled, or raisined on the vine, concentrating the sugar in grapes-an alternative to wines whose sugars have been concentrated by botrytis.
L –
loess
An accumulation of clay and silt particles that have been deposited by the wind. Loess is typically pale-coloured, unstratified, and loosely cemented by calcium carbonate. Favoured for viticulture because it is porous, permeable, readily warmed and easily penetrated by roots.
M –
Morey-St-Denis
Important village in the Côte de Nuits district of Burgundy producing red wines from Pinot Noir grapes. Morey suffers, perhaps unfairly, in comparison with ist neighbours Chambolle-Musigny and Gevrey-Chambertin beacuse its wines are usually described as being lighter versions of Gevrey or firmer than Chambolle, according to which side of the village they are located.
G –
Grosses Gewächs
Is a prestige wine category devised by Germany's VDP and in use since 2002. The sites in question are typically Einzellagen.
G –
grey rot
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.
M –
maître de chai
Term often used in France, particularly in Bordeaux, for the cellermaster, as opposed to the régisseur, who might manage the whole estate, or certainly the vineyards.
B –
barrique
The most famous of the barrel types, Bordeaux's relatively tall 225 lit.cask with thinner staves than the Burgundian pièce and most other barrels.
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