Here are 10 terms every wine drinker should know (and what they mean)
Vintage, varietal, tannins — oh, my! The list of words to know when it comes to wine can seem a bit daunting.
Want to look (and sound) like you’re a sommelier-in-training? There are a few terms you’re going to need to know.
We asked Claire Saksun, sommelier at Royal Dinette in Vancouver, to take some of the mystery out of wine vernacular by choosing and defining the top-10 terms every wine drinker should know. Think of it as your personal wine drinker’s cheat sheet.
Acidity
The amount of acid in the wine determined by the amount of acid in the grapes when they were picked. Varietals like Riesling and Chenin Blanc have naturally high acidity, while Viognier and Gewurtztraminer have naturally low acidity.
Body
The texture and weight of a wine. A good way to understand body is to drink skim milk side by side with some half and half cream.
Corked
This means a wine has gone off because of a fault called “cork taint.” When a wine is corked it smells musty like wet cardboard.
Natural
There is a lot of debate about what it means for a wine to be called natural, but as a generalization this term means that the wine is made from nothing but organic or biodynamic grapes. No chemicals or fertilizers are used the growing of grapes, and no preservatives or yeasts are added in winery.
Nose
The “nose” of a wine refers to the combination of complex aromas that can be detected using smell after a glass of wine has been swirled in a glass. Many things can be uncovered about a wine through the nose, like the varietal or winemaking technique.
Oaked
(vs. unoaked)
This means the wine has spent some time in contact with an oak barrel, either in the fermentation process, or in the aging process. Winemakers can use different kinds of oak to impart more or less “oaky” flavours on the wine such as vanilla, coconut or toasty notes that integrate well with the fruit flavours. Unoaked wines have been fermented and aged in inert vessels like concrete or stainless steel tanks and have no oaky flavours. Instead, these wines are very varietally pure, and the fruit flavours are the star of the show.
Orange wine
Orange wine is not made with oranges; this refers to the colour of the wine. Orange wine is a white wine made like a red wine. It always starts with a white grape varietal and gets its colour from the time the grape juice spends sitting on the white grape skins.
Tannins
A compound found in the skins, seeds and stems of grapes that leads to the astringent drying sensation found to some degree in most red wines. Tannins bind to the proteins in meat, which is why red wine and meat classically go well together.
Varietal
The type of grape used in making wine. Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot are all varietals. Interesting fact, all varietal types are mutations of the same species of grape, vitis vinifera.
Vintage
This refers to the year the grapes were harvested.
Learn this list, and you’ll be able to smoothly and confidently decipher most wine lists.