Translating French On A Wine Bottle

Châteauneuf-du-Pape

Here's the box supplied with a wine bottle. The writing on the box is larger and simpler than the small font on the wine bottle so easier for you and me to read so I am displaying the box first.

Wine Bottle Box. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Glossary French-English

vieux - old

télégraphe - telegraph

château - large often fortified house or castle (hat on letter a shows a missing s following)

neuf - new

du - of (the)

Pape - Pope (from the word for father)

Châteauneuf-du-Pape (prestigious French wine area)

Now, for the wine bottle

Here's the bottle in its box.

Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Bottle. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Let's start with the easy bits. M i s e  en bouteille. (Spell checker changed this to Miss when I wasn't looking.)

Glossary French- English

alambic - type of pot still used for Armagnac (generic word for a pot still)

an - year, as in English word or yearly annual

ans - years

b a r r i q u e (no, spell-checker, I do no mean baroque)

b a r r i q u e s - plural of b a r r i q u e

bouteille - bottle

bouteilles - bottles

de - of

distillation - distillation

é g r a p p é - grape stalk

élevé - root word is lever French for to lift, as in élève or secondary school child, brought up or lifted or matured. The a c u t e or rising diagonal accent means lifting your voice to sound like ay as in bay 

en - in

et - end

g r e n a c h e - (the name of a red grape variety)

lente - slow

Mai - May

Marc - digestif - drunk at the end of the meal, fortified wine supposed to help your digestion but really 

Marc a grape brandy (like Cognac and Armagnac - where the leftover wine is not sold but skins are thrown away) BUT Marc is leftover from making the wine, made as a way of not wasting skins already used to make wine

mis / mise - placed

mourvedre - (the name of a red grape variety)

obtenu - obtained

par - by

sans - without

still - onion shape giant kettle for boiling up alcoohol

tradionnel - traditional 

tri - triple

vases - (column shape?) container

vintage - old age

Numbers

42% Vol. - 42% alcohol - which is for spirits, so it is much stronger than wines or beers

50 cl - two thirds of a standard 75 cl (750ml) bottle; m is a thousandth of a litre, c is a hundred as in cent; m is mille or thousand as in millionaire

vintage 2002 

mise en bouteille 2013 - placed in bottle in 2013

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.