Take a look at these bottle labels. Can you translate French, German, Spanish, Italian, Hungarian bottle labels? It's easier than you might think.
Sometimes you get just the legal requirements, country, region, vineyard, importer, age. Look at this in more detail.
The name of the country
Is it old world or new world. Old world will often impress older people who are often set in their preferences and many like wines from France, especially the patriotic French! Within France you have the region, such as Champagne. Growers from one town or city or village are proud of their name and often band together to set the standards.Each country has its own translation of are of origin stated, for example, in French, German, Italian, often abbreviated to three initial letters. Once you know that Champagne is a place name, you know that in English the word should start with a capital letter because it is a proper noun, meaning the name of a place or person, an individual. In German they use capital letters for all nouns so there is no such distinction.
But to provide more variety of taste, in a bad year or even a good year, they may blend two grapes, or more. Some drinkers like Syrah. Some people like old world wines, French. I go for Italian Prosecco (which was originally only a place name but now also a grape variety) and Asti (which is a Italian place name). I like Zinfandel grapes and sweet muscat grapes.
A favourite game or test of the wines, as well as the audience at a tasting, is to guess the original of the first wine (blind tasting, wine label hidden). Sometimes you blind taste the first two wines. In a contest of wines, blind tasting is done of all the wines buy a panel of experts and a medal is awarded to the best.
France the region maker, the ingredients - in wine a variety of grapes, sulphites - which is usual as a preservative.
The wine label at the start of this post has the picture of a bird, a 'Whistler' in Spanish. I spent an evening chatting to new friends and took a picture without taking time to read the bottle label.
Now I have analysed it and found it most interesting. How little one remembers. Looking away, I seem to remember the bird facing left. But looking at the label again, I see that it is facing right. That doesn't matter, just shows how memory can play tricks. I remember it as a fascinating bird. I was obviously excited just by the fact that it's a picture of a bird on a bottle label. Looking at it closely, it has no colour, no distinctive features, it is not an exotic bird like a parrot. Yet it had the effect of summoning up a very positive reaction in me as a drinker, and would do the same to a buyer. That's marketing for you.
Champagne and Champagne Methos
I had this all wrong. You start by making wine. The huge 'barrels' but they are not barrels but vats. Nowadays worldwide vats are not only wood but more often steel or even concrete eggs. My wine expert says wine is not first in an enormous French oak barrel but you add flavour last. As in other countries, wine is then left to mature longer in a bottle, with a cap on the bottle. Wine is matured two years minimum in bottles for Champagne; after the yeast is added to create bubbles.
Later bottles are turned to release the yeast to the top, ice is added so that then the ice plug of yeast pops out. To replace the air gap left in the bottle after the ice plug has gone you must add some more wine. The dose of sugar, in French called the dosage varies, from the driest, nature (nature or natural) or brut (think brutal, untamed) through sec to doux (think it's soft or sweet or delicate).
Cork
The cork is placed in the bottle. A wire cage to stop the cork popping off under pressure from the bubbles.
Label
The label tells the company years later, and the seller, and the drinker, what is in the bottle. The year is specified because weather affects the quality. In a bad year you might have fewer grapes, or nasty grapes so you throw a lot away in order to preserve the quality of the wine for yourself and for your reputation. If you are unlucky, the glut of grapes mean prices go down. but usually a good year means the wine is so good that people want it, buy it, drink it. In time this leads to less quantity of the best wine from the good years meaning scarcity.
TRANSLATIONS
appellation - Franch for name (from apel for name)
Cava - Spanish white wine, similar to Champagne and Prosecco
controllée - French for controlled
Champagne - place in France - where wine must still be made by the traditional Champagne method in the bottle.
cremant - creamy - with bubbles but not allowed to be called Champagne because it is from another region and/or city or village in France
Prosecco - Italian place name and grape name - usually sweeter than Champagne
Whistler Label Analysed
My first thought on see the bird was how cute. Then I read in Wikipedia that it eats insects. Not so cute. Although not as bad as lions killing people and gazelles, eating plants must surely be less cruel than eating insects. Think again.
The bird is not just pretty. It is an important part of the production progress. You see the word organic on the label. What does this mean? The vineyard does not use pesticides. Instead they let the bird eat the insects.
http://iblamethewine.com/silbador-2013-organic-cabernet-sauvignon-chile
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
type in Angela Lansbury, author or travel writer or poet. Fortunately there are only four people with my name. Most people I look up on Facebook and google and linkedIn have twenty namesakes worldwide. As for people called Patel, Cohen and Levy, Singh - several million of those.
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