GRASSY
Characteristics reminding the taster of grass or fresh hay; frequently used to describe the flavor and aroma of Sauvignon Blanc.

HARD
High in acidity or tannins; a less complementary way of describing a firmly structured wine.

HEADY
High in alcohol.

HERBACEOUS
Tasting or smelling of herbs; frequently a component of Cabernets and Sauvignon Blancs.

HOLLOW
Lacking in middle flavors and structure; the sense that something is missing between the first taste and the finish. Hollow wines are often the result of yields that are too large, diluting the quality of the grapes.

HOT
Describes unbalanced, high alcohol wines that have a burning flavor sensation.

HOUSE STYLE
Nonvintage wines (which are blends of multiple vintages) allow vintners to create a "house style" by blending for consistency and distinctive, recognizable aromas and flavors year after year. For example, Champagne producers create a house style with their nonvintage Brut bottlings; Port producers create a house style with their nonvintage ruby and aged tawny ports.

IMPERIAL
A large bottle that holds the equivalent of eight regular bottles.

JEROBOAM
A large bottle that holds the equivalent of six regular bottles; however, in Champagne a Jeroboam holds four bottles of wine.

LATE HARVEST
Wines made from grapes picked later than normal (and therefore with higher sugar content), usually dessert wines. Most late harvest wines contain some residual sugar.

LATE-BOTTLED VINTAGE PORT
LBV's are an increasingly popular category of Port. Similar to--but less-expensive than--Vintage Ports (which must by law be bottled within 2 ½ years of the vintage), LBV's spend an extra 3 or 4 years mellowing in barrel before bottling. Therefore, they are more mature and easy-to-drink than Vintage Ports from the same year. Some LBV's are filtered before bottling; those labeled "Tradition" are unfiltered and will deposit sediment with further aging.

LEAN
Indicates a wine is lacking in mouth-filling flavors.

LEES
Sediment and yeast found in a barrel or tank during and after fermentation. Increasingly, New World winemakers are using the old technique of aging the wine on the lees to increase complexities in the aromas and flavors. "Sur Lie" is the French term for a wine left on the lees.

LEGS
The drops of wine that slide down the sides of the glass when it is swirled.

LENGTH
The amount of time a wine's taste and aroma are evident after it has been swallowed.

LIMOUSIN
A type of French oak cask, from the forests of Limoges, France. See French oak.

MACERATION
Stirring the grape skins (and sometimes stems) with the wine during the fermentation process in order to extract color, tannin and aroma.

MADE AND BOTTLED BY
A near meaningless term with few legal requirements; in California, for example, a winery can use this phrase even though the winery crushed, fermented and bottled only ten percent of the wine in the bottle.

MADERIZED
A wine showing evidence of oxidation, including a brownish color and bad Madeira-like flavor.

MAGNUM
A bottle that holds 1.5 liters, the equivalent of two standard size wine bottles.

MALOLACTIC FERMENTATION
This refers to a secondary fermentation which converts the malic acid in a wine to softer lactic acid, and thereby reduces the total acidity of the wine. This softens and adds complexity to most red wines, and contributes to the buttery richness of white wines such as Chardonnay. Not all wines go through malolactic fermentation.

MATURE
Ready to drink.

MERCAPTANS
An unpleasantly rotten, sulfur smell found in some defective wines.

MERITAGE
A term coined by California wineries, for Bordeaux-style red and white blended wines that often don't meet minimal labeling requirements for varietals. If a winery produces a Meritage wine, it is frequently their most expensive blended dry wine. Examples of wines that fall into this category include Opus One, Phelp's Insignia and Dominus.

METHODE CHAMPENOISE
The secondary, inside-the-bottle fermentation that is used to create authentic Champagne and other high quality sparkling wines. It's what creates the bubbles in the finest sparkling wines, but it is an expensive, labor-intensive process. Cheaper bubblies are made by the Charmat process. See Charmat.

METHUSELAH
An extra-large bottle holding 6 liters; the equivalent of eight standard bottles.

MUST
What grape juice is called before it becomes wine.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR
A giant wine bottle holding the equivalent of 20 standard bottles.

NEGOCIANT (NEGOCIANT-ELEVEUR)
A wine merchant who buys grapes or already fermented wines, then ages, blends, bottles and ships them under his own label. Many famous French wine companies (particularly in Burgundy and the Rhone) make wines from vineyards they don't own and thus are negotiants. Examples include Guigal, Jaboulet, Jadot, Duboeuf, Drouhin and Laboure-Roi. Many American companies are technically negociants as well, making wines from grapes purchased from vineyards they don't own. Negociant wines can be as good or better than estate bottled wines (and vice versa).

NOBLE ROT
See Botrytis cinerea.

NONVINTAGE
Wine blended from multiple harvests; nonvintage wines are particularly common in Champagne and sparkling wines, Sherries and Ports. Blending allows the winemaker to create an individual "house" style that can be fairly consistent from bottle to bottle, year after year. Examples include Krug Champagne and Grahams 20-year-old Tawny Port.

NOUVEAU
A tradition started in Beaujolais, these are usually quickly fermented fruity red wines that are the first release of the new harvest. The best from France, Italy and California are fresh, fruity and dry-a celebration of the harvest, they are greatly enjoyable during the fall and winter holidays. Bottled rapidly after fermentation is completed and rushed to the market, Nouveau wines display all their charms from the get-go and should be consumed within months of release.

OAKY
Describes the aroma or taste character of a wine that has interacted with the oak of a wood barrel. Most of the world's greatest red wines (and many of the world's greatest whites) are aged in wood before bottling and show some vanilla-spice-toast character contributed by oak.

OFF-DRY
A slightly sweet wine.

OXIDIZED
A wine that has lost its freshness from exposure to the air, similar to an apple turning brown and losing its flavor once the skin is peeled away. Oxidation is what ruins the flavors of leftover wines. Using products such as Private Preserve Wine Preserver (which blankets the wine with inert gas and prevents contact with oxygen) can prevent oxidation.

PEAK
The time when a wine displays its smoothest, fullest flavors; this can vary from a few months for Nouveau or fragile white wines, to spans of decades for long-lived Ports, Bordeaux and dessert wines.

PH
A chemical measurement of the intensity of the acidity in a wine; the lower the pH, the more intense the acid. Low pH wines are better candidates for aging as they are less sensitive to oxidation and have greater resistance to bacteria. But pH is really a much more important factor to winemakers than to most consumers.

PHYLLOXERA
The name of a root louse which attacks and devastates grapevines. It spread from America to Europe in the 1860's and destroyed the vineyards of France, then spread elsewhere. Most of the world's vineyards are now planted on American rootstock (which is more resistant to Phylloxera). However, in the last 20 years it has become rampant in the Napa Valley and caused major replanting.

PRIVATE RESERVE
A label once used to indicate a producer's finest bottlings, Private Reserve has no legal definition and is now applied to everything from cheap wines to $100 bottles.

PUNT
The name of the indentation found in the bottom of most wine bottles.

RACKING
A term for the traditional winemaker practice of moving wine from one container to another; it's essentially decanting on a grand scale by moving a wine from barrel to barrel. The purpose of racking is to rid the wine of sediment by leaving it behind in the first barrel. It requires more labor, but racking is less disturbing to the wine than filtration.

REHOBOAM
A large bottle equivalent to six regular bottles.

RESERVE PORT
See Vintage Character Port.

RESIDUAL SUGAR
A measurement, usually expressed in degrees of Brix, of the amount of grape sugar remaining in a wine after fermentation is completed. Dry wines have little or no residual sugar; dessert wines have much residual sugar.

RICH
An expression indicating opulent, full flavors-not necessarily sweet.

ROBUST
Full-bodied, intense.

ROUND
Describes a smooth wine.

SALMANAZAR
A large bottle which holds the equivalent of 12 regular bottles.

SOFT
Wines which are low in acid have a soft texture in the mouth.

SPICY
A complementary description applicable to many fine wines: Syrah usually displays a pepper spice character; Pinot Noir frequently has suggestions of cinnamon; and oak barrels contribute a vanilla-spice element.

SPRITZY
A pleasant, light sparkling sensation (sometimes found in young wines) caused by a slight secondary fermentation, or the addition of carbon dioxide.

STEMMY
Green, astringent character of wines fermented too long with the grape stems.A green, sometimes astringent character.

STILL WINE
A term that applies to any wine that is not sparkling.

STRUCTURE
A wine's texture, mouthfeel and balance.

SULFITES
Sulfites are a derivative of sulfur and a natural by-product of fermentation. Most wines contain very low levels of sulfites, which have been used for hundreds of years by winemakers to clean and sterilize equipment and barrels; to kill off bacteria; and to prevent browning and possible spoilage. Sulfur is also sometimes sprayed in a vineyard to prevent disease and pests. Most wines contain very low levels of sulfites even when the winemaker doesn't utilize sulfur anywhere! Under U.S. law, any wine with sulfites higher than 10 ppm must state "contains sulfites" on the label.

SUPPLE
Describes wines of a harmonious, velvety texture-often applicable, for example, to the Merlot wines of Pomerol and St. Emilion.

SUR LIE
Indicates a wine was aged "on the lees" (sediment consisting mainly of dead yeast cells and small grape particles). This process is a normal procedure for fermenting red wines; Burgundian winemakers discovered that it often added complexity to their Chardonnays, and now this process enriches many white wines from around the world.

TABLE WINE
In the United States, any wine that is under 14% alcohol can be labeled simply as "table wine" and does not have to state the actual alcohol content.

TANNIN
Tannins are a natural substance found in many plants (including grapes and tea leaves) that produce an astringent, mouth puckering sensation. Tannins are common in most fine young red wines and help form natural preservatives that allow wines to develop and age; with time, they smooth out and disappear. Brew yourself a strong cup of black tea to experience and immediately identify tannins.

TARTRATES
Beautiful, natural and totally harmless crystals that often form in the cask, in the sediment and on the corks of naturally made wines. These deposits come from the tartaric acids present in wines; though they look like cut glass, they are totally safe. In fact, they are a positive indication to experienced tasters that a wine has not been overly processed.

THIN
Lacking body; often used to describe a diluted tasting wine with little potential for improvement.

TINNY
Tasting of metal.

TOASTY
A flavor imparted by oak barrels and sometimes descriptive of sparkling wines as well.

VARIETAL CHARACTER
The aromas and taste sensations typical of a particular grape variety.

VEGETAL
A word applied to wines that smell or taste like plants or green vegetables; too much vegetal character can detract from the enjoyment of a wine.

VELVETY
A soft, silky, lush tactile impression found in the best Burgundies and Pinot Noirs.

VINICULTURE
The science of growing wine grapes and making wine.

VINTAGE CHARACTER PORT
Sometimes labeled Reserve Port, these wines are richer bottlings than standard Ruby Ports due to the addition of vintage-quality wines. The flavors are meant to suggest the attributes of Vintage Port for a fraction of the price.

VINTAGE DATE
Refers to the year the grapes were harvested and to the wine made from those grapes. To place a vintage on the label, most wine producing regions now require that at least 95% of the wine contain grapes harvested from only that year. Historically, some wine regions were lax in requiring that vintage dates be accurate. Wines that are blended from more than one harvest are called nonvintage wines.

VINTNER
Wine producer or winery proprietor.

VITICULTURAL AREA
A grape-growing area in the United States, as defined by law. Loosely based on the French concept of Appellation Controlee, the U.S. has set borders on certain regions that have identifiable geographical features, climate and history. Unlike the French system, the U.S. does not limit yields, grape types or winemaking methods within these regions. It simply regulates that the wines must be 85% from a viticultural area to carry its name. Napa Valley is an example of a viticultural area.

VITICULTURE
The science of grape growing; when including the production of wine, the proper term is viniculture.

VITIS VINIFERA
The species of grapevines most responsible for producing the world's best wines, including Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernets, etc.

YEAST
Important microorganisms that cause fermentation by converting sugar to alcohol. Without yeast, the world would lack wine, beer and most bread.