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A layman's translation of some of those funny (and
not so funny) words and phrases with which wine buffs like to sprinkle
their conversations.
Alcohol
Alcohol gives body and flavour to a wine.
Actually there are many alcohols. The main one in wine is ethanol
or ethyl alcohol. Methyl alcohol and others are present in tiny
amounts, but are unpleasant in large quantities.
Aroma
Smell of a wine. Purists say it's only part
of the smell - defined by the variety of the grape.
Austere
Very straight-laced wines from the top French chateaux. They only begin
to taste good when they've had a few years in the bottle. The large
amount of tannin has mellowed and is balanced by the alcohol and sugar
in the wine. Maybe easier defined as the opposite of wines made for
drinking young - Beaujolais, etc.
Balance
In a good balanced wine the different ingredients - sugar, acids, tannins,
alcohols, etc. - all make up part of the taste. No one element predominates.
Balance develops during ageing, but should be evident to an expert
even in a young wine.
Big
Simply means the wine has a good strong taste. The stronger flavoured
wines usually contain more alcohol, too. St Emilion wines are often
referred to as big.
Bitter
One of the four basic taste sensations. Red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon
taste bitter when they're young because of their relatively high tannin
content.
Blanc de Blancs
White wine made from white grapes. Wow!
Blanc de Noirs
White wine (sometimes with a pink tinge) made from the juice of red grapes.
Body
The glugginess of a wine. Related to the alcoholic strength. Visible
in the roads when you swirl a glass. Wines from hotter areas tend to
have more body.
Botrytis
Noble Rot. A fungus that shrivels the grapes and concentrates the sugar
content. Under controlled conditions this can result in a very pleasant
wine. Sauternes are vastly improved when made with this sort of grape.
Bouquet
Smell. Again. Purists say this is the smell and taste of the whole wine,
not just the grape. It is affected by pressing, fermentation, filtering
and storage.
Brilliant
Perfectly clear, not a trace of cloudiness or haze. Brilliant wines usually
have a high acid content.
Brix
A measure of a grape's sugar content, and therefore the likely eventual
alcoholic content of the wine.
Brut
Dry, as opposed to sweet.
Bulk Secondary Fermentation
A process that horrifies the good people of Champagne. It's a method
for making sparkling wine, but the second fermentation takes place
in a tank rather than the bottle.
Carbonic maceration
Alternative method of fermentation. The grapes aren't crushed - they
ferment underneath a covering of carbon dioxide. This seems to make
a wine 'fruitier'. Some Beaujolais wines are made this way, and the
Australians are experimenting with the method.
Chaptalisation
The addition of sugar to the crushed grapes and juice in order to increase
the alcoholic content of the wine.
Clone
A variant of the basic vine. Different plants flourish in different climates
and/or soils.
Cold fermentation
The juice is refrigerated during fermentation - the longer brewing time
seems to concentrate the flavour.
Corked
Wine that has an unpleasant musty smell and taste. It's caused by a mould
in the cork. Once you smell it, you know!
Crush
Squashing the grapes might be a better term. Crushing them will also
mash open the pips and spoil the taste. The best wines come from grapes
that have been broken open so that the juice runs out. The old method
of treading by foot seemed to do that job very well. Treading the wine
is still done in some parts of Portugal, even today.
Decant
Pouring a wine from its bottle to a jug or another bottle does two things;
it aerates the wine and separates the liquid from any gunge that might
have precipitated to the bottom of the bottle.
Dosage
(Pronounced with a French accent) Adding syrup to dry champagne after
degorgement to replace the small amount of wine lost with the cork
and to adjust the sugar level.
Dry
Same as brut. A wine that isn't sweet at all.
Chateau-bottled
The grapes were grown, crushed, fermented and bottled in the same place.
Esters
Traces of various chemicals in a wine that give it complex flavours.
Filtering
After fermentation wine contains a lot of solids. They will separate
from the liquid eventually, but the job can be accelerated by adding
finings (for example egg white) that sticks to the solids and helps
them separate faster. An even speedier process is filtering or centrifuging.
Many people say that all these methods of speeding up things affect
the taste of the wine.
Finings
Used to speed up the separation of the liquid from the solid after fermentation.
Also see Filtering.
Fortified
A wine that has had brandy or raw grape spirit added. Brandy, port and
Madeira are all fortified wines.
Hydrogen Sulphide
Known to all schoolboys (and girls). It's produced in tiny quantities
by the yeast during fermentation. Racking the wine will usually get
rid of it. If you find a bottle that smells slightly of it, try dropping
a copper coin in the bottle or decanter. If you find a bottle that
smells strongly of it, open another bottle.
Icewine
Not really the same as cold fermented wine. Cool fermenting, just the
same, but refrigeration isn't usually needed. The main difference is
the starting point is frozen grapes. The splitting of the skin seems
to release all sorts of flavours.
Late Harvest
The grapes are left on the vine longer than normal, so the taste is more
concentrated. More sugar too, giving a higher alcoholic content.
Lees
The sediment in the bottom of the fermenting tank. Mostly dead yeast.
Legs
Roads. When you swirl a wine in a glass, then study the way the liquid
settles back you'll see the wine separates into streaks. Caused by
all sorts of things including alcoholic content. Slow falling legs
indicate a full-bodied-wine; quick-falling a light wine.
Maderisation
A procedure involving heating and aging a wine in casks. It darkens the
wine and gives it a sherry or marmalade taste. Madeiras are classically
treated in this way.
Madeira
A fortified wine from Portugal. See fortified and maderisation.
Malolactic fermentation
A secondary fermentation in which malic acid (tastes vaguely of tart
apples) is converted into lactic acid (buttery taste). Can be natural
or artificially encouraged by adding certain bacteria. A common practice
in Burgundy.
Methode Champenois
The way champagne is made. After the wine has fermented, it is put into
bottles and a little sugar added. Fermentation starts again, releasing
carbon dioxide which gives the drink its fizziness. It also forms more
alcohol and a crusty deposit consisting mostly of dead yeast cells.
The bottles are stored tilted with their necks down and rotated so
the deposit is spread evenly on the cork. When the fermentation dies
down the cork is removed along with the muck, the liquid topped up
and a new cork inserted. Sometimes there is then a third fermentation.
All this is very labour-intensive and accounts partly for the price
of champagne. Hence bulk processing.
Must
The mixture of grape juice, skins, seeds, and pulp in in the fermentation
tank.
Noble rot
Botrytis
Nouveau
A wine that has been made to capture the ultimate in freshness and fruit
character and meant to be drunk young. Nouveaux are usually made by
carbonic maceration.
pH
A measure of the acidity of a wine. Can only give a rough guide to how
it will taste.
Phylloxera
A vine disease, also the name of the tiny louse that causes it. It wiped
out nearly one hundred percent of Europe's vines in the 19th century.
The wine trade only recovered when it was discovered that vines that
had been grafted onto certain American rootstocks were resistant to
the louse. Brandy, which had been the English gentleman's drink was
suddenly unobtainable and whisky came to prominence. Scottish whisky
barons deny any connivance with the pest, but are eternally grateful
to it.
Pomace
The residue - grape skins, seeds, etc. after fermentation is completed
and the wine has been racked or filtered off. Pomace used to be ploughed
back into the vineyard, but is now dumped to avoid passing on any disease.
Press wine
After the grapes have been pressed and the juice run off, the pulp, skins,
etc., can be pressed again to release more liquid. This is the press,
and it is often richer in tannins. It is sometimes blended in with
the first pressing.
Racking
The process of draining fermented wine from a tank in order to separate
it from the sediment at the bottom, or for similarly separating grape
juice from skins, etc.
Residual sugar
A measure of the sugar left in a wine after the fermentation is complete.
Roughly how sweet (or dry) a wine should taste.
Solera
Blending various vintages in order to arrive at a consistent taste.
Sulphur dioxide
A preservative which is added to most wines (although the French say
they don't do this - very much). Smelly when too much is used.
Tannin
A natural constituent of wines, especially reds. It tastes bitter in
isolation - bite into a grape seed to try it - but helps preserve the
wine and contributes to a good round taste in small quantities.
Topping Up
The practice of completely filling a cask with wine (hopefully from a
cask of the same vintage) to exclude air.
Transfer Method
Compromise way of making near-champagne. The secondary fermentation takes
place in the bottle, but the liquid is pumped out to a tank before
being transferred to a clean bottle.
Ullage
In a pub this is the overflow from a beer tap. In wine parlance it is
the space between the cork and the wine. A large ullage in an older
wine is normal; a similar level in a younger one might mean trouble.
Varietal
A wine made totally or predominantly from a single variety of grape.
Vinegar
What wine becomes when it stops being wine because it's been in contact
with air for too long.
Volatile
Evaporates easily. Alcohol vaporises at a lower temperature than water,
so it is more volatile. Most of the flavour of a wine is dissolved
in the alcohol, so the smell is easily apparent.
Wood
Many wines are aged in oak casks. In well-made, well-aged wines this
adds to the taste complexity of the wine. Old wood, contaminated wood,
or excessive wood aging can spoil a wine.
Yeast
Yeast is an enzyme that converts sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide.
It is found on grape (and other fruit) skins, or can be added to the
must.
That's as much as I can think of for now. Please
let me know of errors, omissions, etc.
You can press on for some tasting notes . . . or
go and do something much more interesting. Like opening a bottle
of good red.
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