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.
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.
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.
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.
Essential element for healthy vine growth. A deficiency of zinc affects the plant's ability to synthesize the hormones auxins, deficiency in which results in a failure of the shoots to grow normally.
One of the two principal organic acids of grapes and wines. Ist name comes from malum, Latin for apple, the fruit in which it was first identified. Present in nearly all fruits and berries.
Or Le Montrachet, the most famous Grand Cru white burgundy, the apogee of the Chardonnay grape produced from a single vineyard in the Côte de Beaune district of the Côte d'Or.
Translates directly from French as a wine that is naturally sweet. Vins doux naturels are made by mutage, by artificially arresting the conversion of grape sugar to alcohol by adding spirit before fermentation is complete.
Red winemaking process which transforms a small amount of sugar in grapes which are uncrushed to ethanol, without the intervention of yeasts, it is used typically to produce light-bodied, brightly coloured, fruity red wines for early consumption, most famously but by no means exclusively in the Beaujolais region of France.
Or Melon de Bourgogne, the most planted grape variety in the Loire valley, planted on 10798ha/26671acres in 2011 and famous in only one respect and one region, Muscadet.
Appellation for France's finest and certanly most complex vins doux naturels, made from vertiginous terraced vineyards above the Mediterranean at the southern limit of Roussillon.
An expression for that part of the Bordeaux wine region that is on the left bank of the river Garonne. It includes, travelling down river, Graves, Sauternes, Barsac, Pessac-Léognan, Médoc and all the appellations of the Médoc.
French for "white of whites", may justifiably be used to describe white wines made from pale-skinned grapes. As the great majority of them are. A real significance only when used for white sparkling wines.
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.
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.
Spanish term used both to describe the process of ageing a wine and also for the youngest officially recognized category of a wood-matured wine. A crianza wine must have spent a minimum of six months in cask.
