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.
Term used as France's shorthand for the country's finest dry sparkling wines made outside Champagne using the traditional method of sparkling winemaking.
Northernmost appellation of the Côte de Nuits district of the Côte d'Or. It is unique in Burgundy for having Appellation Contrôllée status for red, white, and pink wines.
Are the dissolved inorganic constituents of vines, grapes and wine, often called nutrients, and primarily obtained from geological minerals in the groung.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Spanish term used both to describe the process of ageing a wine and also for the youngest officially recognized category of a wood-matured wine. A crianza wine must have spent a minimum of six months in cask.
Traditional Bordeaux measure of wine volume, once a large woodes cask holding 900 lit., or 252 imperial wine gallons, the equivalent of four barriques.
Progressive winemaking operation which removes suspended and insoluble material from grape juice, or new wine, in which these solids are known as lees.
Important French port on the Garonne River. Bordeaux gives ist name to a wine region that includes the vineyards of the Gironde département and, as such, the wine region that produces more top -quality wine than any other region.
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.
Ancient word for steeping a material in liquid with or without a kneading action to separate the softened parts of the material from the harder ones. This important process in red winemaking involves extracion of the phenolics or anthocyanins, other glycosides, including flavour precursors from the grape skins, seeds, and stem fragments into the juice or new wine.
