Essential element for healthy vine growth. A deficiency of zinc affects the plant's ability to synthesize the hormones auxins, deficiency in which results in a failure of the shoots to grow normally.
French word for various systems of pumping over. In winemaking terms it is the pumping of the liquid in the fermentation tank over the cap of skins and solids during the red wine fermentation.
Means literally "late harvest" and in France is restricted to Alsace, where strict regulations cover ist production, even if too many producers are meeting only the bare minima.
Increasingly fashionable and aims at reducing the exposure of must and wine to oxygen in the winery by minimizing or eliminating practices such as racking, lees stirring, and the use of new oak barrels.
The most important, and variable, appellation in the southern Rhône in terms of quality, producing mainly rich, spicy, full-bodied red wines which can be some of the most alluring expressions of warm-climate viticulture, but can also be either impossibly tannic or disappointingly jammy.
Town north of Perpignan in southern France that gives ist name to two of the biggest appellations of Roussillon, Rivesaltes and Muscat de Rivesaltes, both of them vins doux naturels.
Italian term meaning literally "repassed", for the technique of adding extra flavour, and alcohol, to Valpolicella by refermenting the young wine on the unpressed skins of Amarone wines after these dried-grape wines have finished their fermentation in the spring, and racked off.
Dramatically situated hilltop town on the left bank of the upper Loire which lends ist name to one of the Loire's most famous, and famously variable, wines: racy, pungent, dry white Sauvignon Blanc.
Known as Bourgogne in French, province of eastern France famous for ist great red and white wines produced mostly from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay rapes respectively.
Red-brown loam or clay directly over well-drained limestone found typically in regions with a mediterranean climate. Such soils are found in southern Europe, North Africa and parts of Australia.
French term meaning "bled" for a winemaking technique which results in a rosé wine made by running off, or "bleeding", a certain amount of free-run juice from just-crushed dark-skinned grapes after a short, prefermentation maceration.
Or bâtonnage, as it is called in French, is the once fashionable winemaking operation of mixing up the lees in a barrel, cask, tank or vat with the wine resting on them. It is an optional addition to the process of lees contact and is often employed, particularly for whites which have undergone barrel fermentation. Usually done with a stick. Stirring up the lees in the barrel also effects oak flavour.
