By Monte Belmonte
For the Valley Advocate
While dining out with my lovely wife the other day, it occurred to me that I use a lot of extraordinarily snobby adjectives that are incomprehensible to the lay drinker. Then it occurred to me: maybe a wine glossary would be handy. And, given that I have the opportunity to write this here wine column, I thought I’d give it a go. I hope this is a helpful tool. It is by no means comprehensive. But if you go out drinking with a wine snob, maybe keep a copy of this article with you for the next time you’re subjected to the ludicrous language of the libated.
PEXELS/Valeria Boltneva
You’ll have to wait until the next Advocate publishes to see the second half of my Wine Snob Glossary. Meanwhile, only talk to wine snobs who use the first half of the English language.
ABV: Alcohol by volume. Beer drinkers are familiar with things in the 5% to 8% territory. When you tell them most wine is 12% plus, they lose their double IPA minds.
Acid: It’s what separates most bad white wines from most good white wines. Like when you drop acid, a California Chardonnay can actually seem good.
AOC: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, congresswoman from the state of New York.
Astringent: It’s when a wine makes your mouth all dry and puckery. It has to do with tannins (see column in the next edition).
Barnyard: It’s when a wine reminds you of … poop. Wine snobs are too proper to admit it, so they tell it slant. But face it, some of the best red wines have a whiff of poop. I mean barnyard.
Biodynamic: It is a crazy hippy way of farming that has to do with harvesting under a full moon and burying a cow antler filled with manure in a field. But dammit if it doesn’t make for some great wines.
Breathing: It’s the same as human breathing; exposing a wine to oxygen. If you get a lot of oxygen over several days, you feel great and continue to live. If you give a wine a little oxygen it can really help it sing. But if you give wine too much oxygen over time, you kill it. Way to go, murderer.
Brut: It means drier than dry.
Cepage: The grape or grapes used in a wine. For instance, the cepage of Rhône reds is often Grenache, Syrah and Mouvedre or some combo therein. Its pronounced “say-PAHjuh.” A good cepage will make you “say cheese.”
Corked: When a wine did too much breathing in the bottle before it was open. Or, more literally, when the actual cork made of tree bark was tainted by an airborne fungus and a chlorine molecule that then ruins the wine. It smells like wet newspaper. It’s not your fault. Take it back to the store where you bought it. They’ll probably replace it.
Cotes: Hill or slope.
Cuvée: Most of the time it means a specific blend or batch. Sometime it means nothing more than you are going to pay extra for this wine because we put “cuvée” on the label.
Decant: It’s a way to help a wine breathe. You pour it from the bottle into a bigger container. Or you pour it through a napkin like the butler in “Downton Abbey.” Most wines don’t want or need you to do this. Almost no white wines want you to do this. But I’m not saying you (de)can’t.
Dry: Not sweet. But not as not sweet as brut.
Extra Dry: Extra not sweet. But still not as not sweet as brut.
Flabby: Not enough acidity. And how you will look if you drink as much as I do.
Fortified: They put extra booze in your wine. Usually booze made from grapes, like Brandy. It’s for booziness and preservation as much as for flavor. Think Sherry and Port.
Fruity: It’s the same as the normal English meaning but it’s different than sweet. It’s less about tasting sugar and more about imagining what fruits you taste in the wine, like strawberry or lemon or green apple, even though the wine is only made with grapes. Also, most wine snobs never say that wine tastes like grapes. I know. Weird.
Grand Cru: This one can be really confusing because it has some official meanings in certain parts of France. But basically it means a vineyard where the grapes that are grown there have the potential to make the best wine from that region. Unlike when “cuvée” shows up on the label, this one usually is worth the extra dollars they are going to charge you.
Green: Contrary to white wine (which is often yellow), red wine (which is often purple) and orange wine, green means a wine made from grapes harvested too young or maybe a little under ripe. Green wine can often be described as tasting “vegetal” (see next column).
Hot: The wine has a high alcohol content. Sometimes you can smell it. Sometimes you can taste it.
Jammy: When a wine is both fruity and sweet and tastes like jam. Its not an overly complimentary term (like, “the Grateful Dead is too jammy”).
Lees: Dead yeast. But lees sounds so much fancier. Yeast eats grape sugar, farts carbon dioxide, and poops alcohol. If you leave juice “on the lees” or “sur lie” it can bring interesting smells and flavors. But it’s basically a fancy controlled rotting, so they say it in French so it sounds nicer.
Legs: Ever seen the teardrop-looking droops on the sides of your glass? Those are legs. It’s cause by surface tension (called the Maragoni Effect), gravity and evaporation of alcohol. Legs are sexy. It makes your wine hot, meaning boozy.
I only have a certain number of words I’m allowed per column. Which means unfortunately, dear reader, you’ll have to wait until the next Advocate publishes to see the second half of my Wine Snob Glossary. Meanwhile, only talk to wine snobs who use the first half of the English language.
