When visiting wine shops, attending wine tastings, or taking vineyard tours in the summer, it helps to have a sneak peek at a glossary of wine terms. I like to write down the terms I hear at the back of my diary. I have tried writing technical terms on the back of vineyard brochures as I take tours, and writing down words and translations or explanations and definitions in a dedicated notebook, but by the next day at the next vinyard (when in a vinyard region) I have lost my notebook or filed it away.
Here are the words I hear often. I suggest you make your own translations into English and/or the language of your home country or the country you are visiting - or several if you want to identify terms on wine labels. I shall keep coming back to this list and adding to it throughout the day and week.
You might like to print it off and add your own terms. You could attach it to the back of your diary or guide book with sticky tape.
English
artisan - craft or hand made, small company, one off, unusual, small scale, unique
broker - bulk seller, intermediary between the wine grower and the bulk buyer - a combination of marketing man and price negotiator
boutique - small and specialised, usually a shop
eclectic - lots of different things, wide ranging, gathered from all over the place or world
esoteric - unusual
microclimate - weather in a small (micro) area
varietal wine - made from a single variety of grape, as opposed to a blend
vineyard - place where grapes on vines are grown in soil
winery - place where grapes are turned into wine in vast vats
bottling plant - place where vats of wine are delivered and poured into bottles which are labelled
importer - warehouse or wholesaler bringing in large amounts of wine from another country
distributor - the company which sells smaller amounts to restaurants and shops and organises delivery to them
vintage - year (some wines are drunk young, as soon as they are off the vine and into the bottle such as Beaujolais nouveau, others are so good and flavoursome they are left to mature in barrels and bottles
viticulture - growing of vines, like the word agriculture means growing plants from Latin ager for fields, cropping, and horticulture is the growing of flowers in gardens from h o r t u s which is Latin for garden
French (For France, Belgium, Switzerland)
château - castle - the little A shape hat over the letter a tells you the letter S has been dropped
chateaux - plus is plural instead of s - castles, usually not looking like a moated castle with heavy defensive stone walls but a more elegant grand mansion with a pitched roof and turrets and many windows
rosé (pronounced rose ay / eh) rose coloured or pink
terroir - territory or land, the landscape and soil which affects the produce from the vines, so the sunny side of the hill or west bank of a river produces different wines from the other side. Is it stony, sandy, rocky, chalky, wet or dry, clay, cold or cool, warm or wet, high or low, steep or sloping or stepped or flat, seaside, riverside, waterside, hillside or mountainside.
vendage
Sommelier - wine expert who buys the wines and advises you which wine to drink in a restaurant
(One way of remembering is the classic - I didn't make it up - mnemonic kebab shops are bad to enter, but the last two letters don't quite fit. Never mind, it gets you most of the way through the list.)
k kabinet - the driest
s spatlese - late picked
a auslese - extra late picked
b bierenauslese berries really late picked - almost look like ice which comes next
e Eiswein - ice wine - often sold in a long thin icicle shape bottle
t Trockenbeerenauslese Too good to be true - grapes or berries almost rotten on the vine, the absolute sweetest, just add an extra syllable for each level
Eu regulation have basic wine and quality wine.
Italian
consorzio - consortium or group
controllata - controlled
denominazione - denomination (from name)
di - of
della - of the
origine - origin
Prosecco - a place and a grape originally. See Wikipedia.
riserva - reserved or saved, so a better wine
tutela - tutelage
via - way or street
DOC - denominazione di origine controllata - guaranteed to come from the place of orin stated on the label and if anybody else in another area or country claims to be from our region we will try to sue them or shut them down to protect our reputation and monopoly and protect the customer from inferior and / or cut price products and fraud
Portugal
Casa - house
Spanish (For vineyards and bottles from Spain, Mexico and South America)
Alta - high (casa alta high house - English popular pub name Case is Altered is believed to be a corruption of the term casa alta, meaning a multi-storied house which in those days was three storeys which would be high; alta as in altitude and altimeter)
bodegas
cooperativa - co-operative
crianza - basic wine
del - of / of the
reserva - reserved or worthy to be saved and mature
Rioja - region of northern Spain which gives its name to wine from that region
Rioja Alta
La Rioja administrative region of north Spain on the river Ebro of which one tributary is the Oja - as in Rio Oja hence Rioja (pronounced o ch a, heavy ch as if clearing your throat). But the vineyards are not on the Oja! They are on the Ebro, the one which wraps around the hillside where you find - where you find Viña Tondonia. the n with the wavy line above is pronounced n y as in vineyard
La Rioja Alta - compay brand name combining both
viña - vineyard
USA
American English is much the same as the British English.
NZ
Australia
German (for wines and vineyards in Germany, Austria and Switzerland)
Angela Lansbury, author and photographer, writer, blogger and speaker.
Here are the words I hear often. I suggest you make your own translations into English and/or the language of your home country or the country you are visiting - or several if you want to identify terms on wine labels. I shall keep coming back to this list and adding to it throughout the day and week.
You might like to print it off and add your own terms. You could attach it to the back of your diary or guide book with sticky tape.
English
artisan - craft or hand made, small company, one off, unusual, small scale, unique
broker - bulk seller, intermediary between the wine grower and the bulk buyer - a combination of marketing man and price negotiator
boutique - small and specialised, usually a shop
eclectic - lots of different things, wide ranging, gathered from all over the place or world
esoteric - unusual
microclimate - weather in a small (micro) area
varietal wine - made from a single variety of grape, as opposed to a blend
vineyard - place where grapes on vines are grown in soil
winery - place where grapes are turned into wine in vast vats
bottling plant - place where vats of wine are delivered and poured into bottles which are labelled
importer - warehouse or wholesaler bringing in large amounts of wine from another country
distributor - the company which sells smaller amounts to restaurants and shops and organises delivery to them
vintage - year (some wines are drunk young, as soon as they are off the vine and into the bottle such as Beaujolais nouveau, others are so good and flavoursome they are left to mature in barrels and bottles
viticulture - growing of vines, like the word agriculture means growing plants from Latin ager for fields, cropping, and horticulture is the growing of flowers in gardens from h o r t u s which is Latin for garden
French (For France, Belgium, Switzerland)
château - castle - the little A shape hat over the letter a tells you the letter S has been dropped
chateaux - plus is plural instead of s - castles, usually not looking like a moated castle with heavy defensive stone walls but a more elegant grand mansion with a pitched roof and turrets and many windows
rosé (pronounced rose ay / eh) rose coloured or pink
terroir - territory or land, the landscape and soil which affects the produce from the vines, so the sunny side of the hill or west bank of a river produces different wines from the other side. Is it stony, sandy, rocky, chalky, wet or dry, clay, cold or cool, warm or wet, high or low, steep or sloping or stepped or flat, seaside, riverside, waterside, hillside or mountainside.
vendage
Sommelier - wine expert who buys the wines and advises you which wine to drink in a restaurant
(One way of remembering is the classic - I didn't make it up - mnemonic kebab shops are bad to enter, but the last two letters don't quite fit. Never mind, it gets you most of the way through the list.)
k kabinet - the driest
s spatlese - late picked
a auslese - extra late picked
b bierenauslese berries really late picked - almost look like ice which comes next
e Eiswein - ice wine - often sold in a long thin icicle shape bottle
t Trockenbeerenauslese Too good to be true - grapes or berries almost rotten on the vine, the absolute sweetest, just add an extra syllable for each level
Eu regulation have basic wine and quality wine.
Italian
consorzio - consortium or group
controllata - controlled
denominazione - denomination (from name)
di - of
della - of the
origine - origin
Prosecco - a place and a grape originally. See Wikipedia.
riserva - reserved or saved, so a better wine
tutela - tutelage
via - way or street
DOC - denominazione di origine controllata - guaranteed to come from the place of orin stated on the label and if anybody else in another area or country claims to be from our region we will try to sue them or shut them down to protect our reputation and monopoly and protect the customer from inferior and / or cut price products and fraud
Portugal
Casa - house
Spanish (For vineyards and bottles from Spain, Mexico and South America)
Alta - high (casa alta high house - English popular pub name Case is Altered is believed to be a corruption of the term casa alta, meaning a multi-storied house which in those days was three storeys which would be high; alta as in altitude and altimeter)
bodegas
cooperativa - co-operative
crianza - basic wine
del - of / of the
reserva - reserved or worthy to be saved and mature
Rioja - region of northern Spain which gives its name to wine from that region
Rioja Alta
La Rioja administrative region of north Spain on the river Ebro of which one tributary is the Oja - as in Rio Oja hence Rioja (pronounced o ch a, heavy ch as if clearing your throat). But the vineyards are not on the Oja! They are on the Ebro, the one which wraps around the hillside where you find - where you find Viña Tondonia. the n with the wavy line above is pronounced n y as in vineyard
La Rioja Alta - compay brand name combining both
viña - vineyard
USA
American English is much the same as the British English.
NZ
Australia
German (for wines and vineyards in Germany, Austria and Switzerland)
Angela Lansbury, author and photographer, writer, blogger and speaker.
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