Much-discussed term for the total natural evironment of any viticultural site. Major components of terroir are soil, and local topography, macroclimate, mesoclimate and microclimate.
The mountain of Reims, or the forested high ground between the Champagne towns of Reims and Épernay. Ist lower slopes are famed for the quality of Pinot Noir base wine they produce.
German term for sweet reserve, the unfermented or part-fermented must much used in the 1970s and 1980s to sweeten all but the finest or driest German wines.
Is the winemaking operation of storing a fermented wine in wooden barrels to create ideal conditions for the components of the wine to evolve and so that the wood imparts some oak flavour.
Is just west of, and very much smaller than, the much more famous Sancerre, near the city of Bourges, producing a not dissimilar range of red, white, and rosé wines which can often offer better value.
Is used in much the same way as the word cave in French, for any sort of wine-producing premises wheather above or below ground. A German wine specifying a Keller rather than a Weingut on the label is usually the produce of a merchant rather than an estate. In Alto Adige, the Italian Tyrol, Kellereigenossenschaft is a common name for one of the many wine co-operatives.
Appellation for France's finest and certanly most complex vins doux naturels, made from vertiginous terraced vineyards above the Mediterranean at the southern limit of Roussillon.
Is Europe and the rest of the Mediterranean basin such as the Near East and North Africa. The term is used solely in contrast to the New World, the Old World having little sense of homogeneity. Old World techniques in vineyard and cellar have relied more on tradition and less on science than in the New World.
Italian term applied to DOC wines which are deemed superior because of their higher minimum alcoholic strength, usually by a half or one per cent, a longer period of ageing before commercial release, or a lower maximum permited yield, or all three.
Is a term used particularly in Burgundy for wine which qualifies for an appellation that coincides with the name of the village or commune in which the wine is made.
Coupage in French, is a practice that was once more distrusted than understood. In fact almost all of the world's finest wines are made by blending the contents of different vats and different barrels.
