A Dozen Essential Wine Terms - Part 1

Château Margaux, a First Growth from the Bordeaux region of France, is highly collectible. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many of us enjoy the odd glass of wine and often have our own favourite vineyards, grape varieties and regions, however, the world of wine enthusiasts can seem a little esoteric, even daunting, dissuading us from pursuing our tastes further and exploring the myriad of wines on offer. This needn’t be the case and armed with a little knowledge, the world of wine can be a fascinating one to explore.

To help you on your way, the following provides a brief summary of half a dozen of the most common pieces of wine related jargon.

Appellation
This is a French term in origin that broadly represents the region in which a wine is produced, i.e., where a wine’s grapes were grown. It can, however, be more specific in also determining the methods used in the production of the wine or the grape varieties used, but equally can have no bearing on theses factors at all. In France the term appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) is used to protect the branding of certain products, including wine, so that they can only carry the appellation designation if they meet the specific criteria. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Champagne - specifically a sparkling white wine from the Champagne region of northern France.

Corked

A commonly used term to generally describe a wine that has gone off, or wines where there are small pieces of cork in the wine. The term more accurately describes wines in which a specific chemical reaction has occurred involving chlorines, which have been introduced into the wine from the cork (or during the wine making process), and which has tainted the wine. The result is that the wine tastes and smells of damp and moldy socks. Screwcaps on bottles of wine are becoming more popular because they reduce the incidences of corking which by some estimations can affect up to 7% of all wines.

Decanting

This is the process of transferring the wine from its original bottle to an alternative vessel, a decanter for example, from which the wine is then served. The process is understood to improve and release the aroma and flavours of the wine as it gives it a chance to breathe (i.e., aerate, and therefore oxidise a little). However, there is much debate as to the true benefits of the process and little empirical evidence to support any of it despite the fact that is still generally considered good practice.

Oenology/Oenophile

Oenology is simply the study of wine and all things related to wine such as the processes behind wine production (although not necessarily the cultivation of the grape which is covered by the topic known as viticulture). A person, therefore, who has an interest in wine can be labelled a oenophile, whilst an expert in these areas will be known as an oenologist.

New & Old World

These terms are used to distinguish the traditional wine producing regions, largely located around the Mediterranean in southern/central Europe and northern Africa, from the more recent territories such as Australasia, North America, South America and South Africa where wine production techniques have been exported through historical European colonisation. There are often differing characteristics between old and new world wines due to the differing climates but many of the European grape varieties and wine style/production templates used for new world wines have been taken from their old world forefathers. However, without the extensive history and perceived pedigree behind them new world vineyards are still seen to be playing catch up by some wine critics.

Vintage

The term vintage is used in a number of contexts and often slightly misleadingly. In its true sense and most accurately a vintage wine is one that has been produced using grapes from one specific year’s harvest. A wine can benefit from being a vintage if that year’s harvest produced a particularly high quality yield and as a result the term has become synonymous with better quality wine. From that inference the term has spread into common language in a corrupted form to label anything which is of a perceived quality whilst being old, but in the wine world there can still be bad vintages as well as good.

Where the wine maker is after a more consistent wine they will blend together grapes from more than one harvest to even-out the discrepancies and these wines are known as non-vintages.

© Stuart Mitchell 2012
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