This week’s Wine Word of the Week is chai. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Chai is a French, and particularly Bordelais, term for a place where wine and occasionally brandy is stored, typically in barrel. Thus a smart Bordeaux chateau will have (perhaps) the chateau building itself with no direct […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is shiner. Interestingly, this week’s Wine Word of the Week does not appear in any of the “official” guides I generally use, including Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine, Ron Herbst and Sharon Tyler Herbst’s The New Wine Lover’s Companion, and Charles Hodgson’s History of Wine Words. […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is enophile. Official definition from Ron Herbst and Sharon Tyler Herbst’s The New Wine Lover’s Companion: An enophile is someone who enjoys wine, usually referring to a connoisseur. Also spelled oenophile. Layman’s terms from Kori: An enophile is a wine lover.

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is reserve. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Reserve is a term liberally used by wine producers for various bottlings. It should be quite literally reserved itself, for superior wines, but, unlike Reserva and Riserva, the English term Reserve has few controls on its […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is case. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Beer and milk may be sold in crates but, contrary to popular usage, wine is sold in cases. A case typically holds a dozen bottles, the basic trading unit in the fine wine trade and much […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is magnum. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Magnum is a large bottle size containing 1.5 l/54 fl oz, or the equivalent of two bottles. It is widely regarded as being the ideal size for bottle aging fine wine, being large enough to slow […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is large format. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Large format is a bottle size larger than the standard 75 cl size and of particular interest to collectors and investors (provided it is filled with fine wine). Layman’s terms from Kori: Large format is […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is bottles. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Bottles are by far the most common containers for finished wine. Being made of glass, bottles are inconveniently fragile and relatively heavy, but, importantly for long-term aging, they are inert. A standard bottle contains 75 cl/27 […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is blush. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Blush wine is a very pale pink popular American specialty made, rather like France’s vin gris, by using black-skinned grapes as if to make white wine. A marketing triumph emanating from California in the late 1980s […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is aperitifs. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Aperitifs are drinks served before a meal to ‘open’ (from the Latin aperire) the digestive system and stimulate the appetite, of which vermouth and similar drinks are archetypal. Wines commonly served as aperitifs are dry, white, […]