Glossary

DEFINITIONS, KEY PHRASES, & WORDS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT MATTER

Let me just say up front that I’m never going to tell you how to talk about wine. That’d be like walking up to some innocent onlooker at an art museum expressing their feelings about a particular painting and being like, “No, no. You actually must talk about your reaction to Basquiat like this!” It strips away everything organic, honest, and creative from the experience. But just like any other subject or industry, the wine world has a lot of terminology that normal-ass people have no use for in their everyday lives, but that you still need to be familiar with. While I one hundred percent encourage you to describe a glass of your favorite Zweigelt as “dope,” slang isn’t going to help you buy wine in stores, order it at restaurants, or find common ground with your fingers-crossed-future-father-in-law over dinner. We simply can’t discuss wine with everyone without first learning the dialect.

We also can’t protect ourselves without educating ourselves. First of all, there is a ton of misinformation out there in the world. People overhear some gossip at a dinner party and treat it as gospel because some dude named George spent a weekend in Tuscany and therefore he must be a real authority. Look, George doesn’t know shit. But neither do most people, so they believe what they hear and repeat it to a bunch of other people who also don’t know shit who then believe it and repeat it. Suddenly, everyone is going around claiming they drink “sulfite-free” wine when that is a physical impossibility. And second, you can’t spar with an asshole who uses wine words as a weapon unless you know them, too. Cynical, I know. I would love to be proven wrong, and genuinely hope you never have to deal with this, but from my experience, you’re going to. People love being assholes about wine, and although you should definitely just walk away from these interactions, it’s always nice to be able to throw your middle fingers in the air while coming correct on some douche bag who thought they could stump you with phylloxera.

Not today, snob.

Not today.

Normally, a glossary is in the back of the book, but for the purpose of preparing you for the chapters ahead, I’m giving it to you now. Take a little time to get acquainted with the vocab to save yourself from constantly having to look shit up.

Acid/Acidity: Acid/acidity is the sour quality of a wine. It is caused by acids in the grapes themselves and/or the fermentation process.

Aeration: You know how some people need time to open up? So do some wines. Aeration is when you purposefully expose wine to air to help it breathe and soften its acidity and tannins. Many winemakers aerate their wines during the winemaking process, but you can also aerate wine in a decanter or with one of those fancy aerating devices you got for Christmas. Or you can just pour it in a glass and let it chill out for a while, and boom, you just aerated that shit!

Aging: This is when you leave a bottle for a while and hope that when you come back to it, it has grown the fuck up and is finally ready for a real relationship. Just kidding . . . kinda. Aging is when you leave a bottle unopened for an extended period in hopes that it softens and becomes more complex as its components meld together over time. So yeah, it does grow up! To age wines, you need to store them somewhere with a cool temperature. Ideally, at cellar temperature, which is 54 degrees. Since most of us do not have a wine cellar, you can store them in a small wine fridge, in the darkest, coolest corner of your closet, or even under your bed if your room doesn’t get too hot. Aging varies from wine to wine, so do some research. You don’t need to be crafting vinegar under your mattress.

Alcohol: That thing we love! And hate! Produced during fermentation, alcohol is a chemical compound created when yeasts consume natural grape sugars, and in the infamous words of Dave Chappelle as Samuel L. Jackson, “It’ll get you drunk!”

Alcohol by Volume: ABV is the measurement of how much alcohol is in a wine and one of the most important things to look at on a wine’s label. The ABV in wine varies wildly, with wines as low as 9 percent alcohol to heavy reds that can get up around 15 percent. You want to pay attention to this, because pounding a bottle of 14.5 percent Petite Sirah can really fuck you up.

Appearance: What a wine looks like, particularly its color and clarity.

Appellation: A legally designated region where grapes are grown and wine is made, like Champagne or Napa. Some appellations have certain laws and rules that winemakers must abide by in order to use the appellation on the label of their wine. For example, wait for it . . .

Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée: Usually abbreviated to AOC, Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée is a designated and approved appellation in France that has certain regulations by which wines must be made. With rules for everything from what varietals can be grown, to how much can be grown, to which winemaking methods can be used, AOCs protect the geographical areas and ensure winemaking standards.

Aromatic: A nice way of saying that a wine has a strong smell, or has more smells going on than an eighth-grade boys’ locker room.

Astringent: Descriptor for heavy or too much tannin. It’s a sharp, sucking feeling that leaves your mouth drier than the time you smoked weed out of your sister’s three-foot bong.

AVA: Stands for American Viticultural Area, which is basically America’s version of the AOC without the rules. For example, Napa is an AVA. This means it is recognized as a region where grapes grow, but there are no regulations for growing the grapes or anything similar. They’re just like, “This is a place with grapes. Cool.”

Balance: When all of a wine’s components—such as fruit, acid, tannin, and alcohol—work together and create a harmonious taste on your tongue. Nothing feels out of place.

Big: A descriptor used for wines with so much flavor that they feel like they’re filling your entire mouth. And not just in an “Oh, wow, I just took a really big sip” way.

Bitter: Used to describe a wine with a sharp, well, bitter taste. It can be caused by unripe grapes, tannins, or just your personal palate.

Blend: The combination of several different grapes to create a wine. It can be for a specific blend, like a winery’s “red field blend,” or it can be used for creating balance or complexity in a seemingly single varietal wine. This is why you will see a bottle labeled Cabernet but on the back you will see it also is 10 percent Merlot. I know, it’s confusing, because you’re like, “Why is it called Cabernet, then, if it’s not just Cabernet?!” Because they’re allowed to, that’s why.

Body: The weight of a wine in your mouth. Literally how heavy it feels when you drink it.

Botrytis Cinerea: Also known as the noble rot, botrytis is a good, gray mold that enhances a wine’s flavor and sweetness by concentrating the grape’s acids and sugars. This naturally occurring mold usually is found in cool, damp vineyards, and while winemakers may try to prevent it on certain grapes, they like it on sweeter wine grapes like Riesling and Tokaji.

Bottle Aged: When a wine has been aged for a substantial amount of time in the bottle. It’s like aging, except this is usually done before the wine is available in retail.

Bouquet: The aromas of a wine, sometimes referred to as “the nose.”

Brilliant: Classically, this means the wine is crystal clear, but I say you can use it for expressing that you think a wine is deliciously genius.

Brix: A unit of sugar used in the winemaking process to predict how much alcohol will be in a wine.

Brut: Pretty fucking dry Champagne, with less than 1.5 percent residual sugar.

BTB: An abbreviation meaning wine is served “by the bottle,” usually used on hip restaurant lists to let you know they “get” young people.

BTG: An abbreviation meaning wine served “by the glass,” because btw tbh TL;DR young people love abbreviations.

Bulk Wine: Any unbottled wine that is in mass quantity, usually sold to other companies to bottle and sell under their own label. As a consumer, you may not hear this often, but it is good to know because if you hear a wine is from bulk wine, then you know the winery whose label is on the bottle did not make the wine themselves.

Bung: A cork that is placed into the bunghole, a circular opening in a barrel of wine that is used for getting the wine in and out of the barrels during the winemaking process.

Buttery: Used to describe wine that smells or tastes like butter, usually caused by malolactic fermentation.

Cap: The mass of grape skins, stems, and seeds that forms at the top of the tank during a red wine’s fermentation.

Carbon Dioxide: Gas created during fermentation; also what makes wine effervescent.

Carbonic Maceration: When full clusters of grapes are fermented whole, rather than being crushed before fermentation. Individual grapes go through fermentation as the grapes are crushed under their own weight. This is what makes Beaujolais and other red wines taste extra poppy.

Chaptalization: The addition of sugar during the fermentation process to increase alcohol levels. Considered shady and gross by many, especially those in the natural wine community.

Charmat Method: Also known as the Tank Method of sparkling wines, where the second fermentation to create bubbles is done in a big tank.

Chewy: Used to describe a full, textural wine that feels a little like you just mowed down a bag of gummy bears. Like you need to chew it.

Closed: Used to describe when a wine needs to breathe for a bit, or young wines that probably needed to be aged longer and now you’re bummed that you got excited and opened it too early.

Cloudy: When a wine’s appearance is foggy-looking. This is common for wines that have not been filtered or fined.

Coarse: Descriptor used when a wine’s texture is literally scratchy, like you’re licking sandpaper, usually because of a high concentration of tannins.

Cold Fermentation: When the fermentation vessel, usually steel tanks, is cooled, creating a slower fermentation that helps preserve a wine’s aromas and flavors.

Complex: Used to describe a wine’s flavor that changes as you drink it, or if there’s a lot going on and you don’t even know where to start.

Corked: When a wine has been tainted by the chemical trichloroanisole (TCA). The wine, not the cork itself, will smell like wet dog or musty newspapers. This is also called cork taint.

Crush: The compressing of grapes before fermentation.

Decant: To let wine breathe and have it, hopefully, taste better in an hour.

Demi-Sec: French way of saying “moderately sweet.”

Depth: The intensity of a wine’s flavor.

Destemmer: A machine used to destem grapes before they’re crushed.

Dirty: Some people use this as a negative term to describe faulty, poorly made wine. I use it to describe textural, natural wines that taste dirty, as in literal dirt. Usually in a positive manner. Unless I’m saying, “This tastes like dirt.” But even then, that can be a good thing!

Disgorging: The process in which the lees, the sediment from yeast and other particles, are removed from sparkling wines after second fermentation.

Dry: Used to describe wines that have very little residual sugar (less than 0.2 grams), and taste literally dry. Can be used to describe tannins as well, although make sure to clarify that in mixed company.

Earthy: Descriptor for when a wine tastes like anything relating to the earth itself, like soil, dust, plants, or even some vegetables such as mushrooms. If it tastes like you’ve picked it off the ground, it’s earthy.

Elegant: Used to describe graceful, smooth wines. Jackie Kennedy vibes, not “Mom dancing to a Jimmy Buffett cover band after too many margaritas” vibes.

Enology: The science and study of winemaking, not to be confused with viticulture (the study of grape growing) but fine to be confused with oenology because it’s the same thing.

Estate Bottled: Bottled on site of the vineyard, as opposed to wines that are bottled at an outside facility.

Esters: Aromatic compounds created during fermentation by yeasts and bacteria. Esters are the reason why, as you’re swirling and smelling your wine, you detect the scent of anything but grapes.

Extra Dry: Extra dry has 1.2–2.0 grams of residual sugar, making it sweeter than “dry” and totally ass-backward. I don’t get it either.

Fat: Another way to say “full-bodied,” although I think it’s a little rude.

Fermentation: Wine’s naturally occurring game of Pac-Man, where the yeast eats the sugar and converts it to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Thus making WINE!

Filtering: The process of removing sediment from a wine.

Fining: When they add clarifying agents (aka gross additives) to make a wine’s appearance clearer.

Finish: That lasting sensation a wine leaves in your mouth after you’ve swallowed it.

Flat: When a wine tastes dull and boring, most likely because it doesn’t have enough acidity.

Flowery: When a wine smells or tastes like you shoved a bouquet of flowers in your face. (Or even just a couple of flowers.)

Fortified: When a wine has the addition of wine spirits added, such as port, sherry, and vermouth.

Free Run: Juice that is produced under the weight of the grapes after harvest. That juice is freeeeeeee, freeeeeee runnin’. Wines can be made entirely of this free run juice, or it is added to the pressed juice.

Fruity: Adjective used to describe wines that smell heavily of fruit, whether it be jammy dark berry fruits in red wines or bright citrus or tropical fruits in white wines.

Full-Bodied: A wine that is heavy, leaving a weighty feeling in your mouth.

Glou-Glou: French slang for wines that you can drink like water, and glug glug glug down the gullet.

Grassy: A descriptor used for wines that smell or taste like grass, like actual grass, not the Cheech & Chong grass. Most commonly found in white wines like Sauvignon Blanc, grassiness is caused by compounds in the wine that also happen to be found in actual grass.

Green: Used to describe wines that have a plant or vegetable vibe to their aroma and/or flavor.

Herbaceous: When a wine smells and/or tastes like garden herbs. Not the kind you smoke. Okay, maybe.

Hot: An out-of-whack wine with way too much alcohol.

Isinglass: Fining agent made from fish bladders; used for clarifying wine during winemaking. Ick.

Jammy: When a wine tastes like thick, rich berry jam.

Lees: Yeast cells and other particles that have settled after fermentation.

Legs: The streaks or tears on the side of a wineglass that some people will try to tell you is indicative of a wine’s quality. It’s not. The bigger the streaks, the more alcohol in the wine. Considering the ABV is listed on the bottle, there’s no need to inspect legs like they’re the key to a good glass.

Light-Bodied: When a wine is thin, and literally light, in your mouth.

Malolactic Fermentation: Process that chemically converts sharp, strong acid into softer lactic acid and is what creates that “buttery” flavor in wines like Chardonnay.

Mouthfeel: The texture of a wine and, truly, how it feels in your mouth. Examples are silky, juicy, rough, or like running your tongue along an unpaved road.

Must: The juice and pulp of skins, seeds, and stems created after you’ve crushed the grapes.

Musty: A dirty, humid attic smell that is not good in attics or in wine.

New World: Wines from countries that started producing wines after the fifteenth century; basically after France, Italy, Germany, and other European countries got into the winemaking game.

Nonvintage: A Champagne term for when several batches of wine from many different years are blended together. This is how most Champagne is made, so nothing to judge about.

Nose: How a wine smells; same thing as bouquet.

Oaky: The flavor that oak fermentation leaves in a wine. Sometimes it’s faint and sometimes it can be very strong. Different oaks for different folks!

Oenology: The science and study of winemaking (also enology). When you see people tacking oeno onto words, this is why.

Off-Dry: Just a little sweet, like a smidge (but if you’re sensitive to sweet wines, it’s probably still too sweet).

Old World: Countries that have been making wine SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME. Well, the beginning of time for wine, that is, since Old World countries such as France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Portugal, and Greece are where winemaking originated.

Oxidation: When a wine is exposed to oxygen. This can happen during fermentation, on purpose, to create a maple-y flavor in a wine, but it can also happen after the wine has already been bottled, which ruins the wine and is considered a fault.

Phylloxera: The Black Plague of grapevines. Phylloxera is an aphid—you know, those teeny tiny black bugs you’ve probably seen in the garden, hanging on roses and shit?—that attacks grapevine roots, absorbing its water and nutrients, until the vine dies. It has wiped out millions of acres of grapevines, and the only known solution is to rip up the vines, replant the vineyard with Native American rootstocks that are tolerant of phylloxera, and then graft another grapevine onto the new vine.

Press: To take destemmed and crushed grapes and squeeze out any remaining juice.

Private Reserve: Sometimes this term is for legit private releases sold only at a winery or to a winery’s club members, and other times it’s something a winery throws on the label to make people think it’s a legit special release. It’s an unregulated term, so use your best judgment.

Producer: A winemaker that is also involved with growing the grapes.

Pulp: The fleshy inside of a grape.

Pump-Over: When a hose is used to pull wine out from the bottom of a fermentation tank and pour it back over the top to mix the juice with its skins.

Punch-Down: When the skins of grapes have risen to the top of the fermentation tank, they are pushed down manually to mix the juice with its skins.

Racking: During barrel fermentation, sediment settles at the bottom of the barrel. The free juice is then syphoned from its barrel into a clean, sediment-free barrel.

Reserve Wine: This is supposed to be a higher-quality release from wineries, but the terminology isn’t regulated, so it can be slapped on anything. Except wines from Washington State. Washington has it regulated so that only wines that are 10 percent or less of a winemaker’s production and are the highest-priced wines may use the term reserve.

Residual Sugar: Natural sugars left behind after fermentation that weren’t converted to alcohol. You may hear it also referred to as RS. While this does make a wine sweeter, it doesn’t give off a gross saccharine-sweet taste like added sugar.

Riddling (Remuage): Where sparkling wines are placed with their necks tilted downward and are regularly rotated to collect the lees in the neck before disgorgement.

Secondary Fermentation: There are two types of secondary fermentations. There’s the good type, where wines purposefully go through a second fermentation to become sparkling wines (huzzah)! And then there is the bad type, where a non-sparkling wine goes through a second fermentation in the bottle but you don’t know until you open it up and it’s awful. It will be a bit bubbly, and it will taste like a hamster’s cage.

Sediment: All the leftover goodies from winemaking, like yeasts, grape skins, and seeds.

Sentiment: The word my computer always corrects sediment to because it knows I am an emotional creature.

Settling: What you’re doing in that relationship right now. Just kidding! It’s when you open up a wine that has been aging and there’s sediment in the bottle from molecules and tannins bonding over the years.

Skin Contact: Even though all red wines ferment with their skins, the term skin contact refers to white wines that are crushed with their skins and left hanging together for anywhere from a few hours to days, depending on the flavor the winemaker wishes to achieve.

Smoky: When a wine smells or tastes like someone just fired up the grill or a cigar.

Sommelier: A trained and certified wine professional, specializing in wine related to fine dining.

Sour: Used to describe a wine with sharp acidity. Some people see this as a bad thing, but as a kid who used to eat packs of Warheads like they were fruit snacks, I use it liberally and positively.

Spicy: A wine that smells and/or tastes like it’s been hanging out with your spice rack.

Spritzy: Slight effervescence. Can be good in wines that are supposed to have a little bubble, but not great if it’s a table wine. May mean it has had a second fermentation in bottle.

Stemmy: Used to describe wines that smell and/or taste like green plant stems. If it has an astringency to it, stemmy may refer to the grape stems themselves.

Sulfur: A naturally occurring chemical in wine, produced from fermentation. Naturally occurring sulfur is a preservative and antimicrobial agent that is actually very helpful to wine. Added sulfur is also commonly used to maintain a wine’s freshness and protect it from oxidation so it can age for long periods of time.

Terroir: Looks like a terror to pronounce (it’s tare-wah, by the way), but it’s the French word for the entire environment where a wine is produced, including the soil, climate, and surrounding vegetation.

Varietal: A specific type of grape.

Vintner: Old-school term for winemaker.

Vintage: The specific year the grapes were harvested to make a wine.

Vitis Vinifera: Grape varietal native to Europe.

Winemaker: Someone who is in charge of the winemaking process but doesn’t necessarily grow the grapes. A winemaker can do both, but wineries can hire winemakers to come in to make wines out of grapes they grow on their own.

Obviously, this glossary doesn’t contain all the words that exist in the world of wine, but it’s enough to get you started and, most important, to keep you from getting totally confused as we venture forth and begin your foray into drinking wine like a badass who knows what the fuck is up. Or at the very least, knows how to taste, buy, and enjoy wine more than you did before.