Five Wine Terms That’ll Raise Your Snob Value
While the decisive modern consensus that wine is primarily meant to enjoyed without the pressure of ‘snob’ level language, knowing and dropping the following bunch of vinous terms at your next soiree can only enhance your cred and enjoyment so why not, right?!
Appellation
An Appellation specifically defines the region or sub-region that the grapes for any given wine come from. Winemakers and their governing bodies take them very seriously. So for instance, a Bordeaux wine mentions the Appellation on the bottle and in the case of say, the Margaux appellation, that alone makes the bottle very valuable. The Appellation is very identity of the wine and in some cases, its driving force. The Champagne Appellation, for instance, is highly valued and legally protected from misuse. Only sparkling wine produced in the Champagne appellation can be called Champagne which only further underlines the significance of this term.Terroir
This French word, simply put means, ‘a sense of place’. It is an intangible sum total of soil, climate, and human influence that makes the wine and determines its character. It is a subject of infinite discussion and invariably the first word that is dropped when a bottle of wine is open and tasted. Certain elements of the terroir can show up being more predominant on the wine’s palate like for instance, the volcanic soil of Sicily’s Mount Etna region, the gun flint and minerality of Mosel Valley’s slate laden slopes or Marlborough’s plentiful sunlight in a glass of exuberant Sauvignon Blanc. Terroir is elemental to wine and inseparable from every ferment ever produced.Polyphenols
Polyphenols are those ‘magical’ plant compounds found in wine that impart the colour and taste and come from the seeds, stem and skin. There’s also anthocyanins that imbue red wine with its hallmark colour and tannins that are derived from the grape’s skin and seeds. More significantly, polyphenols in red wine are credited with anti-ageing properties.Resveratrol is that haloed antioxidant known for halting and even reversing ageing. Hell, this is a term, everyone ought to know.Autolysis
Drop this term at your next Champagne soiree and they’ll pop open a bottle just for you. Autolysis is a complex process involving the breakdown of lees (dead yeast) by their own enzymes, kind of self-digestion. It happens only for sparkling wines produced using the famous ‘Champagne’ process where a second round of fermentation happens in the bottle. That’s where the bready and toasty notes in Champagne and other sparkling wines come from. Cram the word and little detail and you’re a proper Champagne connoisseur.The ‘Length’ Of Wine
Now this might be the only word you need to drop in a wine tasting to get taken seriously. Almost every wine critic and expert uses this word to appraise a wine, especially red. While we all know what length actually means, in the context of wine, ‘length’ is the sheer seconds and minutes, the flavours of the wine linger on the palate. Tasters also use the word ‘finish’ instead of length frequently. The length of the wine indicates the quality of the wine, its fruit and tannins. Winemakers love to hear ‘long’, ‘tapering’, ‘extended. What they don’t want to hear is ‘short’, ‘abrupt’ or worse, ‘it just dropped off the cliff’. So the next time you swirl and sip the wine, close your eyes and them about the wine’s length. Your reputation will go far.
