This week’s Wine Word of the Week is phylloxera. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Phylloxera. This small yellow root-feeding aphid has probably had a more damaging impact on wine production than any other vine pest, or any vine disease. It attacks only grapevines, and kills vines by attacking their roots. [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is faults. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Faults in wines vary, of course, according to the taste of the consumer. …. To winemakers, however, wine faults are specific departures from an acceptable norm, the least quantifiable of which may be a lack of [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is bottling. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Bottling is a vital wine-making operation for all wines other than those packaged in containers other than bottles and those few served straight from a cask or tank as bulk wine. Bottling techniques vary greatly according [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is stabilization. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Stabilization is a group of wine-processing operations undertaken to ensure that the wine, once bottled, will not form hazes, clouds, or unwanted deposits; become gassy; or undergo rapid deterioration of flavor after bottling. A quick recovery [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is clarification. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Clarification is the winemaking operation which removes suspended and insoluble material from grape juice, or new wine, in which these solids are known as lees. …. Clarification can usually be accomplished naturally by simply holding the [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is fermentation. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Fermentation, as it applies to wine, is the process of converting sugar to ethanol (ethyl alcohol) and carbon dioxide effected by the anaerobic (oxygen-free) metabolism of yeast. It comes from the Latin word fervere, to boil; [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is crushing. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Crushing is the wine-making operation of breaking open the grape berry so that the juice is more readily available to the yeast for fermentation. Modern winery equipment that permits sufficiently thorough crushing has effectively speeded up [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is harvest. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Harvest is both the process of picking ripe grapes from the vine and transferring them to the winery (or field pressing station), and its occasionally festive, if frenetic, duration. This transition period in the wine-making cycle [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is oaky. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Oaky is a tasting term usually applied to wines too heavily influenced by oak flavor, which smell and taste more of wood than fruit, and may be aggressively tannic and dry. Layman’s terms from Kori: Ms. [...]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is fortified. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Fortified wines are those which have been subject to fortification and therefore include sherry, port, Madeira, vermouth, Malaga, mantilla, Marsala, liqueur Muscat, Liqueur Tokay, and several strictly local specialties. Fortification is the practice of adding spirits, [...]