This week’s Wine Word of the Week is yeast. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Yeast, microscopic, single-celled fungi, having round to oval cells which reproduce by forming buds, are vital to the alcoholic fermentation process, which, starved of oxygen, transforms grape juice into wine. Sugars are used as an energy […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is ullage. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Ullage, which derives from the French ouillage, has had a variety of meanings and uses in the English-speaking wine trade. It can mean the process of evaporation of wine held in wooden containers such as a […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is decanting. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Decanting is the optional and controversial step in serving wine, involving pouring wine out of its bottle into another container called a decanter. The most obvious reason for decanting a wine is to separate it from […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is resveratrol. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Resveratrol is the phenolic compound produced by grapevines (and other plants such as peanut and eucalyptus trees), particularly in response to microbial attack or artificial agents such as ultraviolet radiation. It is one of a number […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is bouquet. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Bouquet is the oft-ridiculed tasting term for the smell of a wine, particularly that of a mature or maturing wine. …. It is used loosely by many wine tasters to describe any pleasant wine smell or […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is estate bottled. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Estate bottled is a term used on labels which has a very specific meaning in the United States, where an estate-bottled wine must come from the winery’s own vineyards or those on which the winery […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is barrel aging. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Barrel maturation [the term used in this book for aging a wine in a barrel] is the wine-making operation of storing a fermented wine in wooden barrels to create ideal conditions for the components of […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is aging. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Aging of wine is an important aspect of wine connoisseurship, and one which distinguishes wine from almost every other drink. When a fine wine is allowed to age, spectacular changes can occur which increase both its […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is Brix. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Brix is the scale of measuring total dissolved compounds in grape juice, and therefore its approximate concentration of grape sugars. It is used in the United States and, like other scales used elsewhere, it can be […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is sulfites. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Sulfite and bisulfate, the negatively charged ions liberated when sulfurous acid dissociates…. The analytical method usually used for the measurement of sulfite determines all of the various forms which are active in terms of smell, effect […]