Winemaking operation of breaking open the grape berry so that the juice is more readily available to the yeast for fermentation and to increase the pulp and skin contact.
Winemaking process with the aim of clarification and stabilization of a wine whereby a fining agent, one of a range of special materials, is added to coagulate or adsorb and precipitate quickly the colloids suspended in it.
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.
Commonly used term for controlled origin and quality designations for wine, often following the example of the French Appellation Contrôlée (AC). They are always based on a geographical definition.
The principal milk protein, is used by winemakers as a fining agent particularly useful for removing brown colours from white wines. It is used also in the clarification of young wines.
Or Melon de Bourgogne, the most planted grape variety in the Loire valley, planted on 10798ha/26671acres in 2011 and famous in only one respect and one region, Muscadet.
In common viticultural terms, the offspring of two varieties of different species, as distinct from a cross between two varieties of the same species, which is also known as an intraspecific cross.
One of six so-called Prädikats applying to German wine that has not been chaptalized, and designating-depending on growing region and grape variety-must weights between 67 and 82° Oechsle. As such, Kabinett designates the lightest end of the German wine spectrum, and Mosel Kabinetts that have residual sugar are often as low as 7 or 8% alcohol.
The most prestigious wine estate in Burgundy, based in Vosne-Romanée. The Domaine, as it is frequently called, is co-owned by the de Villaine and Leroy families and produces only Grand Cru wines.
The process of deliberately maturing a wine after bottling, whether for a few weeks as a conscious effort on the part of the bottler to allow the wine to recover from bottle sickness or, in the case of very fine wines, for many years in order to allow the wine to mature.
Red winemaking process which transforms a small amount of sugar in grapes which are uncrushed to ethanol, without the intervention of yeasts, it is used typically to produce light-bodied, brightly coloured, fruity red wines for early consumption, most famously but by no means exclusively in the Beaujolais region of France.
French for "white of whites", may justifiably be used to describe white wines made from pale-skinned grapes. As the great majority of them are. A real significance only when used for white sparkling wines.
French term meaning "on the lees", customarily applied to white wines whose principal deviation from everyday white winemaking techniques was some form of lees contact.
Occasionally madeirization, is the process by which a wine is made to taste like Madeira, involving mild oxidation over a long period and, usually, heat.
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.
Very large group of highly reactive chemical compounds of which phenol is the basic building block. These include many natural colour pigments such as the anthocyanins of fruit and dark-skinned grapes, most natural vegetable tannins such as occur in grapes, and many flavour compounds.
The most valuable category of white wines made from the ripest grapes on the best sites of the Wachau in Austria. The category is named after the green lizard that basks in the sun on the Wachau's steep stone terraces above the river Danube. Alcohol levels in the unchaptalized Grüner Veltliners and Rieslings that qualify must be more than 12.5%.
Latin word from the Greek for a vessel with two handles. Although the term may refer sometimes to fine wares, it is normally used to describe the large pottery containers which were used for the bulk transport of many goods and luquids ind the Mediterranean world.
Even in Ancient Rome it was said Bacchus amat colles, or Bacchus loves the hills, suggesting that hillside vineyards have long been regarded as a source of high-quality wine.
