This week’s Wine Word of the Week is corkage. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Corkage is the charge customarily levied in a restaurant for each bottle of wine brought in and consumed on the premises rather than bought from the restaurant’s own selection. The term is derived from the fact […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is vintage. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: The vintage year is the year in which a wine was produced and the characteristics of that year. … In the southern hemisphere, a vintage-dated wine invariably carries the year in which the grapes were picked, […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is nose. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Nose is the most sensitive form of tasting equipment so far encountered, the sense of taste being so inextricably linked with the sense of smell. …. Nose is also used as a synonym for the smell, […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is palate. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Palate is a term used when describing tasting as a process and an ability. It is generally used to describe the combined human tasting faculties in the mouth and, sometimes, nose. The impact of a wine […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is legs (sometimes referred to as tears). Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Tears is a tasting term used to describe the behavior of the surface liquid layer that is observable in a glass of relatively strong wine. The wine wets the inside of […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is finish. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Since this is an oft used wine tasting term, I was surprised to find that there was no entry for “finish” is The Oxford Companion to Wine. However, I did locate entries for “long” and “short” […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is balance. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Wine tasters say that a wine has balance, or is well balanced, if its alcoholic strength, acidity, residual sugar, tannins, and fruit, complement each other so that no single one of them is obtrusive on the […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is fruit. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: To a viticulturist, fruit is a synonym for grape…. To an oenologist or wine taster, fruit is a perceptible element essential to a young wine. Young wines should taste fruity, although not necessarily of grapes, or […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is alcohol. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Alcohol is the common name for ethanol. Alcoholic strength, an important measurement of any wine, is its concentration of the intoxicant ethyl alcohol, or ethanol. It can be measured in several different ways, the most common […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is color. This particular term does not lend itself to a short “official definition” because there are so many factors that can affect the color of wines. However, I just want to share with you a brief and very general “layman’s terms” definition that will hopefully help you […]