Red-brown loam or clay directly over well-drained limestone found typically in regions with a mediterranean climate. Such soils are found in southern Europe, North Africa and parts of Australia.
The practice of adding spirits, usually grape spirit, to wine to ensure microbiological stability, thereby adding alcoholic strength and precluding any further fermentation.
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.
An expression much used of that part of the Bordeaux wine region that is on the right bank, or north, of the river Dordogne. It includes, travelling down river, Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux, Francs Côtes de Bordeaux, St-Émilion and its satellite appellations, Pomerol and Lalande-de-Pomerol, Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac, Bourg, and Blaye.
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.
German term for sweet reserve, the unfermented or part-fermented must much used in the 1970s and 1980s to sweeten all but the finest or driest German wines.
Dramatically situated hilltop town on the left bank of the upper Loire which lends ist name to one of the Loire's most famous, and famously variable, wines: racy, pungent, dry white Sauvignon Blanc.
French term for the intricate traditional method described in detail in sparkling winemaking. From 1994 the term was outlawed by EU authorities in favour of one of the following: méthode traditionelle; méthode classique; méthode traditionelle classique; fermented in this bottle and traditional method.
Term used on labels which has very specific meaning in the Unitet States, where an estate-bottled wine must come from the winery's own vineyards or those on which the winery has a long lease; both vineyards and winery must be in the geographical area specified an the label.
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%).
One of six so-called Prädikats applying to German wine that has not been chaptalized, and designating-depending on growing region and grape variety-must weights between 67 and 82° Oechsle. As such, Kabinett designates the lightest end of the German wine spectrum, and Mosel Kabinetts that have residual sugar are often as low as 7 or 8% alcohol.
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.
Progressive winemaking operation which removes suspended and insoluble material from grape juice, or new wine, in which these solids are known as lees.
In common viticultural terms, the offspring of two varieties of different species, as distinct from a cross between two varieties of the same species, which is also known as an intraspecific cross.
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.
Is just west of, and very much smaller than, the much more famous Sancerre, near the city of Bourges, producing a not dissimilar range of red, white, and rosé wines which can often offer better value.
Often abbreviated to MLF or malo, is the conversion of stronger malic acid anturally present in new wine into lactic acid (which has lower acidity) and carbon dioxide.
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.
One of the most important wine rivers, linking a range of vineyards as dissimilar as those of Châteauneuf-du Pape in southern France, sparkling Seyssel, and Fendant du Valais in Switzerland.
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.
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.
