The Importance of Speaking Wine

Like every industry or subculture, wine breeds its own specialized language, with particular definitions, shorthand, slang, and inferences galore. Whether it’s the scientific terms about wine production, the descriptions of flavors or textures, the multitude of foreign languages to wade through, or the concepts about wine in general, there is a lot to learn. Understanding the meaning of a few of these terms through the lens of wine may be a path to garnering a deeper insight into the many ways that wine excites and intrigues people. You will also have more tools in your toolkit for communicating effectively what you do and do not like, and hopefully you’ll find more enjoyment in the wines once you have a broader context.Wine begins with farming and winemaking, so I thought that would be a great place for us to start. Appellation: A delineated piece of land that is legally defined. It is a means to distinguish the wines or food of one place from another. The earliest appellations were the Tokaj region in Hungary or the Douro in Portugal, depending on who you believe. Yet it was the French who really ran with the idea, creating the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée system in the 1930s. They have strict rules defining what grapes can be grown on what particular type of land, in what direction the vines can face, how and when pruning and harvest must be carried out, outlawing irrigation, and how wines must be made. French wines will almost always be labeled with the place name, rather than the grape, because it’s where the wine is from that matters more than of what the wine is made. Most other regions in the world have adopted at least parts of this system, though none to such strict standards. The U.S. uses a system called American Viticultural Area, which legally defines areas — and so place names can only be applied to wines from those places. The AVA does not dictate any other aspect of farming or winemaking. Biodynamic: A philosophy established in the 1920s by Austrian Rudolph Steiner as an attempt to connect science and the spiritual world. It was a guide to farming holistically, in a closed-loop system, with special focus on the health of the soil through applications of natural remedies. Timing of actions are laid out in relation to the phases of the moon, giving it a bit of a mystical feel. The biodynamic farming movement has taken the viticultural world by storm and its methods are now employed by many of the greatest vignerons and vineyard managers in the world. Climate: The long-term weather conditions of a region that dictate the grape varieties and styles of wines possible when grown in a particular area. Cooler average climates mean higher-acid, lower-alcohol, lighter-bodied wines, like those from Germany or the Loire Valley, France. Hotter climates mean lower-acidity, higher-alcohol, fuller-bodied styles, like those from Napa Valley, California, or Barossa, Australia.Conventional farming: Farming as it has been done since the end of World War II, where chemical fertilizers are employed to ensure bountiful, if nutritionally null, crops. Chemical fungicides, herbicides, and pesticides are used to combat the various problems that arise to harm our vines and food crops. Their application has led to larger, more consistent yields, but many feel that comes at the expense of the natural world, our waterways, our bodies, and soil health, diversity, and nutrition. Most of the food and drink that we consume is farmed this way.Cru: The French word for a specific piece of land. Famously, Burgundy has divided itself into thousands of Crus and rated them on a scale from best, a Grand Cru, down to second best, Premier (1er) Cru, and finally the largest areas, the Village Cru wines. Some regions like Beaujolais, which has 10 Crus, don’t rate theirs, they just delineate them.Cuveé: Another French word, for a particular batch of wine. A winemaker might release 1 or 20 or more different cuveé every year. They could represent different blends, price points, styles, single-vineyard, or longer-aged wines.Flawed: There are a number of potential flaws that can inflict wine, but every person’s tolerance or acceptance of those flaws varies. They can come from the grapes themselves, mistakes in the winery, the containers or closures of bottles, or how the wine is stored. If you think a wine tastes off, trust your gut — it’s probably flawed. Any reputable restaurant or retailer should take back flawed wines (if you bring back the bottle, full of wine, with the original cork) and give you a replacement, refund, or credit. Too often people drink flawed wines unknowingly and turn against perfectly good bottles, grapes, or styles because of those bad experiences, rather than trying an alternative bottle.Malolactic fermentation: MLF is referred to as a secondary fermentation, but is actually the bacterial conversion of “hard” malic acids (like those in green apples) into “soft” lactic acids (the acid of milk). Almost all red wines go through the process naturally and it is necessary for a balanced, smooth mouthfeel. Only some white wines, like many Chardonnay, go through MLF, the rest being stopped by an application of sulfur dioxide, chilling, or filtering after primary fermentation. Whites without MLF tend to feel sharper and fresher. When MLF is carried out correctly, it gives a wine a balanced, more luxurious texture and should not affect the flavor. Often, though, whether on purpose or not, it can lead to the by-product diacetyl, the flavor of butter, which is a very divisive addition in any wine.Oak: There are 500 species of oak trees and they are found on every continent. A few of them are very important to winemaking both as vessels for fermentation and aging and as closures, in the case of the cork oak. Casks in varying sizes are created from staves that have been cut or cleaved from felled trees, dried and seasoned outside over several years and then fashioned into barrels by coopers. They use heat, usually in the form of an open flame and occasionally in the form of steam, to help bend the pieces into watertight barrel shapes. Each species and each forest and each cooper and heat method can craft barrels that affect both a wine’s flavor and its texture. French oak is the most prized and expensive, with a 225-liter barrel starting about $1,200 new. They have the tightest grain, allowing the least amount of oxygen ingress into the winemaking process, and the most subtle flavors of vanilla and spice. American oak barrels are between about $600-$900, with a looser grain and flavors of dill, coconut and chocolate. Hungarian and Eastern European oak is also used, falling between French and American in terms of grain size, and imparting more of a pine-y note to wines. Barrels impart the most flavor and oxygen in their first year of use and are called new. They continue to decrease in flavor and oxygen exchange over years two, three, and four, at which point they are considered neutral. Most winemakers use a mix of new, second-, third-, fourth-use, and neutral wood to give them plenty of complex blending options. Many of the most expensive wines in the world are fermented and/or aged in 100 percent new French oak. Because of its cost, most inexpensive wines are not aged in wood, but can be flavored with “alternatives” like wood staves, oak chips, or even oak powder added to their neutral fermentation vessels.Organic: A farming method where most chemical inputs are not allowed and must be replaced by naturally occurring, though not always less harmful, substances. There is more of a focus on soil health through composting and helping crops fight for themselves. Often the rules are convoluted and the buy-in to get certified is astronomically high for most small vineyards. In the U.S., wines labeled “farmed with organic grapes” can still contain all of the winemaking additives found in most wines. Those labeled “Organic wine” can contain zero additives, including no sulfur dioxide, and are quite rare.Sulfur dioxide: A hot-button preservative in the world of wine at the moment, blamed for everything from hangovers to headaches, from asthma to skin rashes, and many other ailments big and small. While some of these reactions have been known to occur in certain sensitive individuals in particular circumstances, for the vast majority of people the maximum levels legally allowed in wines in the U.S. are two to four times less than you will find in products like dried fruit, cereal, juice, and canned fish. In reality SO2 is a naturally occurring by-product of fermentation and a compound used as an additive in food and drink for centuries for its effective antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. It has also been used by teetotallers as one of many fear-mongering devices to keep people away from drink (it’s the only of 150 legal additives that has to be listed on wine labels), and as a symbol of impurity for the most dogmatic natural wine drinkers. Stainless steel: A vessel for fermentation and maturation of wine made out of stainless steel is considered inert, meaning it imparts no flavor or textural effect on the finished product. They can come in sizes from 50 liters to 250,000 hectoliters, usually are covered by metal jackets that can be used to heat or cool the contents. They are reusable forever and relatively inexpensive because of that, which means they are what the vast majority of wines are made in.Vintage: In the northern hemisphere, this is the year in which grapes are grown and harvested to make a wine. In the southern hemisphere, it is the year the grapes were picked, as their harvest is usually between March and May and the growing cycle starts in the spring the year before. Tropical areas have two harvests a year. In the U.S., if a date is on the label it means 85 percent of the grapes have to come from the stated vintage and the rest can come from previous vintages. Most wines with a vintage date come from the same single vintage.Mastering vocabulary, not taste, is what will get you over the hurdles of ignorance and into the fascinating world of wine. Each of the above words has the ability to affect the taste or texture of a wine, but every person’s preference for those effects is different. I highly encourage you to seek out wines that follow two opposing methods, like one made with oak and one without; taste them side by side and see if you can notice the difference and pick out your preference.

The Importance of Speaking Wine

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