Wine Terms: A Plain-English Glossary
Acidity, terroir, finish, minerality, legs — wine has its own vocabulary, and it can feel deliberately impenetrable. Here's what the most common terms actually mean.
· 9 min read
Key takeaways
- Most wine jargon describes real, perceptible things — once you know what 'tannic' or 'acidic' means physically, the words become useful rather than pretentious.
- Terroir is the French concept that a wine's character is shaped by where the grapes were grown: soil, climate, altitude, and aspect all contribute.
- A long 'finish' (the taste that lingers after you swallow) is one of the most reliable indicators of wine quality.
- Terms like 'minerality' and 'complexity' are descriptive, not prescriptive — no single definition covers every use.
Frequently asked questions
- What does 'corked' mean?
- A wine is corked when contaminated by TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole), a compound that makes it smell of damp cardboard or wet dog. Around 1–3% of cork-sealed bottles are affected. It has nothing to do with cork fragments in the glass — that's a cosmetic issue, not a fault.
- What does 'reductive' mean?
- Reductive winemaking limits oxygen exposure, preserving freshness but sometimes producing struck-match or sulphurous aromas. These usually blow off with swirling and air.
- What's the difference between a vintage and a non-vintage wine?
- A vintage wine comes from a single harvest year. A non-vintage (NV) wine is blended across years for consistency — most entry-level Champagne is NV. It's a deliberate stylistic choice, not a quality deficit.
- Is 'organic' wine meaningfully different?
- Organic certification means grapes were grown without synthetic chemicals. Biodynamic is stricter. Neither guarantees better wine, but producers committed to organic farming often pay close attention to quality throughout — so there's a correlation.
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