If you’ve ever drank a glass of wine in your life, it’s likely that you stumbled across some wine jargon at some point in time. You may have seen these words in the store, on the back of the bottle, or you may have even heard them in movies/television. A lot of these terms are intuitive (i.e. acid), but some of them can be difficult to translate. In this post, I’m going to simplify ten common wine terms so you can effortlessly commit them to memory.
Terroir
Oh terroir… It’s probably one of the most used words out there in the wine world, yet everyone seems to have their own definition for it. Terroir is a French term that essentially describes the environmental factors that influence a wine. These environmental factors include the soil and topography. For example, if you’re tasting some chalkiness in your wine, chances are that the soil the grapes are grown in has some chalkiness in it. Neat, huh?
Old World
Simply put, the Old World is comprised of countries such as: France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and pretty much any wine-producing European country you can think of. Egypt and Armenia count as Old World and those are in Africa and Asia, respectively. These countries have been making wine for a very long time, hence, old (historic). They’re sticklers for tradition, so if you want to experiment with winemaking techniques, you can forget it.
New World
Well, we’ve been over Old World, so what’s the New World? These countries are newer to producing wine and tend to break tradition by experimenting with different styles of wine and winemaking techniques. These countries include Australia, United States, Argentina, South Africa, etc.
Nose
I’m not talking about the body part that sits on the middle of your face here. Nose refers to the overall sum of a wine’s aromas (smells). Nose can be synonymous with the word “bouquet.” Whichever word you want to use is up to you. You might hear someone say, “What’s on the nose?” They’re just asking, “What are you smelling?”
Fruit-forward
If you have ever nosed a wine, you’ll notice that certain components stand out. Sometimes these components will be fruity and sometimes they’ll be earthy or minerally. If the fruit components stand out the most— meaning that you can immediately pick up several fruit aromas, then the wine is considered fruit-forward. Drink a red Burgundy and a California side-by-side and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Knowing what fruit-forward is comes with practice.
Body
Body refers to the weight of the wine on your palate. People will refer to the body as light, medium, or full. Several factors influence body such as: alcohol, acidity, residual sugar, etc., but we’ll save that for another day. One analogy that a lot of wine enthusiasts use to describe body is milk. Skim milk would be light-bodied and whole milk would be full-bodied.
Mouthfeel
Mouthfeel is quite literally how the wine feels in your mouth. What’s the texture of the wine? Sometimes wine can feel creamy, velvety, or even silky on the palate. Obviously there are tons of words to describe texture, but those are just a few common ones.
Finish
You know that aftertaste that kind of lingers in your mouth after you’ve had a sip of wine? That’s called the finish and it can linger for various amounts of time. Short finishes will last no longer than 10 seconds and long finishes can last for minutes! Finish is a characteristic that is used for judging the quality of a wine. A good finish is one that has pleasant sensations that linger on your palate for a long time. There’s no point in calling a finish good if you get an awful aftertaste of rotten melon that lasts for three minutes. You can also describe finish by what it’s driven by. Is the acidity the most dominant on the palate after you’ve already swallowed? Then it’s an acid-driven finish.
Balance
Wine is made up of different components such as acidity, alcohol, sugar, tannins (for red wines), and the bouquet. A wine is considered balanced if all of these components are harmonious and no one element overpowers the rest. Balance is a bit subjective just because people have different tolerances to certain components. I am extremely tolerant to acidity, so while some wines can be overly acidic, I actually find them quite refreshing. Some are sensitive to acidity, so too much of it will completely overthrow the balance of the wine. Generally speaking, people tend to agree on balance.
Vintage
What is vintage? It’s the year the grapes were harvested. If you’ve ever drank a 2017 vintage, then you’d be drinking grapes that were harvested in 2017. The vintage will be printed on the label unless it’s labeled N.V., which stands for non-vintage. Non-vintage is a blend of different vintages.
