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| Accessible, Approachable |
| When wine flavours are harmonious, a wine that is ready to drink. |
| Acetic Acid |
| The acid that gives vinegar its characteristic taste. Small amounts are normal in wine; larger amounts give wine a vinegar-like character. |
| Acidity |
| Gives wine its crispness. Grapes have two primary acids: tartartic and malic. In South Africa, winemakers are allowed to add acid. |
| Aftertaste |
| The lingering flavours of a wine; its persistence. A long aftertaste is a good characteristic. |
| Alcohol |
| Produced when yeasts ferment the sugars in the grape. Alcohol gives an impression of fullness, richness and, at higher levels, sweetness. Also a preservative, helping keep wines in good condition. Measured by volume of the total liquid. |
| Alluvial |
| Soil that contains clay, silt, sand or gravel deposited by running water is alluvial. Grapes grown in mostly sandy and stony alluvial soil produce wines with more concentrated fruit flavours. |
| Aroma |
| The fragrance of the wine when sniffed. |
| Astringent |
| A mouth-puckering sensation associated with high tannin (and sometimes acid). |
| Attack |
| Initial sensations on palate or nose. |
| Backbone |
| A wine with structure, not flabby or insipid. This is often from acid or tannin content. |
| Baked |
| 'Hot', earthy quality. Usually from scorched grapes, or from too warm a barrel fermentation, especially in some whites. |
| Balance |
| When the wine's components - alcohol, acid, tannin, fruit and wood (where used) - are in harmony. |
| Barrel Aging |
| Leaving wine in oak barrels to allow flavour and aromatic compounds to develop. |
| Barrel Character |
| The flavour and aromatic compounds an oak barrel contributes to the wine. Barrel character varies by the type of wood, coopering techniques including toasting and length of oak aging, and the age of the barrel. |
| Barrel Fermentation |
| The conversion of grape juice into wine by yeast in an oak barrel. Barrel fermentation gives wines complexity and integrated oak flavour. |
| Bead/Mousse |
| Bubbles in sparkling wine; a fine, long-lasting bead is the most desirable. |
| Bitter |
| Sensation often perceived in the finish of a wine. Sometimes more positively associated with the taste of a specific fruit or nut, such as cherry-pip or almond. |
| Blend |
| A wine made from two or more different grape varieties, vintages, vineyards or containers. Some of the world's finest wines are blends. |
| Bloom |
| Flowering of the grapevines. Bloom is also a waxy substance found on the skins of grapes. |
| Body |
| The extract of fruit and alcoholic strength together give an impression of weight in the mouth |
| Botrytis |
| Botrytis is caused by a fungus that attacks ripe grapes. The benevolent form is known as "noble rot" which is responsible for the world's finest sweet wines. |
| Bottle-age |
| The development of aromas/flavours (i.e. complexity) as wine matures after bottling. As a negative, bottle-age means a wine with stale, empty, or even off odours. |
| Brix/Balling |
| The measurement of soluble solids in grapes at harvest, taken with a refractometer and expressed in degrees. In unfermented grapes, degrees of Brix are approximately the same as percent of sugar. After fermentation, the alcohol concentration is roughly ha |
| Bud |
| A small protuberance on a stem or branch, often enclosed in protective scales and containing an undeveloped shoot, leaves or flowers. |
| Bud Break |
| When the first shoots emerge on a vine after winter dormancy. |
| Buttery |
| Flavour and texture associated with barrel-fermented white wines, especially Chardonnays; a rich, creamy smoothness. |
| Cane |
| The previous season's shoots that have matured and become woody. Selected canes are retained in some styles of pruning for the following season's fruit production. |
| Canopy |
| The leaves and shoots of grapevines. |
| Cap |
| The grape skins that float to the top of fermenting red wines, forming a "cap." |
| Carbonic maceration |
| Method of fermenting wine without crushing grapes first. Whole clusters with stalks, etc are put into closed vat; fermentation occurs within the grape berries, which then burst. |
| Chaptalisation |
| Originally a French term for the addition of sugar to grape must to raise the alcohol of a wine. Not permitted in South Africa. |
| Charmat method |
| Method of making sparkling wine in a sealed tank (cuvée close) under pressure. Easier, cheaper than méthode champenoise. |
| Clarify |
| Refers to the wine-making operation which removes lees (dead yeast cells and fragments of grape skins, stems, seeds and pulp) from grape juice or new wine. |
| Clone |
| A sub-group within a variety of genetically identical plants propagated from a single vine to perpetuate selected or special characteristics. |
| Cold soak |
| Cold maceration. Red winemaking method carried out prior to alcoholic fermentation. Skins and juice of red grapes are held, usually for a few days, at a sufficiently cool temperature to prevent fermentation. Supposed to extract flavours gently. |
| Cold stabilisation |
| A technique of chilling wines before bottling to cause the precipitation of harmless tartrate crystals. |
| Complexity |
| The term used when a wine has multiple flavour and aroma characteristics from the vineyard source, winemaking techniques and/or bottle development. |
| Corky/Corked |
| An "off" characteristic in wines due to a chemical compound trichloroanisole or TCA. Corkiness is believed to come from fungi that are not detectable on dry corks, or by a cork processed with chlorine. TCA diminishes the fruit character of the wine, subst |
| Creamy |
| A silky, buttery feel and texture in wine. |
| Crisp |
| Refers to acidity. Positively, means fresh, clean; negatively, too tart, sharp. |
| Deep and depth |
| Having many layers; intense; describes a serious wine. |
| Dense |
| Well-padded texture, flavour-packed. |
| Diatomaceous earth |
| A light, brittle material derived from fossilized microscopic unicellular algae called diatoms, used as a filter in clarifying wine. |
| Dosage |
| The sugar added to méthode champenoise or MCC after the second fermentation. |
| Dry |
| The absence of a sweet taste sensation. |
| Dry-fermented |
| Wine that is fermented until it is dry, meaning that all the sugar is converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide during the fermentation process. |
| Earthy |
| Wine with soil-derived flavour/characteristics; mineral, damp leaves, mushrooms etc. |
| Easy |
| Undemanding, simply-flavoured. |
| Elegant |
| Stylish and refined. |
| Elemental sulphur |
| A chemical used to dust vineyards as a control for powdery mildew. |
| Esters |
| Scents generated by alcohols and acids in wine. A wine is 'estery' when these characteristics are prominent. |
| Extract |
| An indication of the 'substance' of a wine, expressed as sugar-free or total extract (which would include some sugars). 18 g/l would be low, light; above 23 g/l in whites is significant; a heavy red is above 30 g/l. |
| Fermentation |
| The conversion of sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide by yeast. Many of the flavours of wine are created during this process. |
| Filtration |
| Passage of wine through cellulose pads, diatomaceous earth or membranes to remove suspended solids, yeast or malolactic bacteria. Sweet wines must be filtered to remove yeast and prevent re-fermentation in the bottle. |
| Finesse |
| Descriptor for a polished, balanced wine. |
| Fining |
| The traditional method of clarifying wine. Insoluble substances bind with wine components and precipitate out of the liquid to reduce tannin or remove unstable proteins. |
| Finish |
| The residual sensations - tastes and textures - after swallowing. Should be pleasant (crisp, lively) and lasting in a good wine. |
| Firm |
| Compact, has good backbone. |
| Flabby |
| Usually means lacking in backbone, especially acid structure. |
| Fleshy |
| Very positive, meaning a wine is well fleshed out with firm texture and flavours. |
| Flowery |
| Scents and tastes with a floral aspect, as opposed to fruity (i.e. smell/taste of papaya, cantaloupe, gooseberry). |
| Forward |
| Opposite of a shy wine, with pronounced flavours and scents. |
| Free run |
| After grapes have been de-stalked and crushed, juice runs freely (without pressing). This juice is the cleanest and believed to be the most flavourful. |
| Fresh |
| Lively, youthful. Closely related to the amount of acid in the wine: a sweet wine without a backbone of acidity will cloy; enough acid and the taste is fresh and uncloying. |
| Full |
| High in alcohol and extract. |
| Glycerol |
| Product of alcoholic fermentation. Has an apparent sweetening effect on even dry wines and also gives them a slightly oily, mouth-filling character. |
| Graft |
| To splice a varietal vine to the rootstock of another type, usually one resistant to particular pests or diseases. |
| Gravity-flow |
| Winemakers prefer to rely on the natural force of gravity in the winemaking process to avoid the use of pumping. For example, in the process of racking, the undesirable solids in the wine (lees) fall to the bottom of the tank by force of gravity. The clea |
| Green |
| Usually unripe, tannic and hard; sometimes simply too young. |
| Grip |
| Firm on palate and in finish. Acid, tannin, alcohol are contributors. Often not a positive term. |
| Herbaceous |
| Grassy, hay-like, heathery, can also indicate under-ripeness. |
| Hollow |
| Lacking substance/flavours. |
| Honey or honeyed |
| Sometimes a honey/beeswax taste or flavour; or a sign of developing maturity in some varieties or a sign of bottle age. |
| Hot |
| Burning sensation of alcohol in finish. |
| Inoculation |
| The introduction of a special yeast culture, or any other organism, into the pressed grape juice. |
| Intensity |
| No flab, good flavour development. |
| Lean |
| Thin, lacking good fruit flavours. |
| Lees |
| Sediment occurring during winemaking or bottle aging. Adds flavour and complexity to wines if left "sur lie". |
| Light |
| Wines under 10% alcohol, also wines light in body (and usually short on taste). |
| Lively |
| Wines with fresh, expressive flavours. |
| Loam |
| A soil containing a mixture of clay, silt and sand that is best for the growth of most plants. Loam is not necessarily ideal for viticulture, as it can encourage excessive growth. |
| Long or length |
| Enduring; wine's flavours linger on the palate long after swallowing. |
| Maceration |
| Prolonged skin and juice contact to extract flavours, colour, and tannin, both before and after fermentation. |
| Malolactic fermentation |
| The bacterial conversion of the crisper, apple-type malic acid to the softer, milk-type lactic acid in wine. Also called ML or secondary fermentation, this acid conversion yields wines with increased complexity and softer acidity. |
| Meaty |
| Suggesting a general savouriness; but also literally the aroma of meat: raw, smoked etc. Often applied to merlot, shiraz. |
| Méthode champenoise |
| Classic method of making champagne by inducing secondary fermentation in the bottle and producing fine bubbles. Due to French law, Cape sparkling wines made in this way are called Méthode Cap Classique. |
| Mousse/Bead |
| Bubbles in sparkling wine; a fine, long-lasting bead is the most desirable. |
| Mouthfeel |
| The in-mouth impressions of wine when wine tasting, especially the tactile sensations such as "heat" from high alcohol content or "heaviness" or body due to the viscosity from high alcohol and residual sugar in the wine. |
| Must |
| The skins, seeds and juice of crushed berries; may also contain whole berries or whole clusters. Red wines are fermented as must; white wines are pressed and fermented as juice. |
| Native yeast |
| Yeast occurring naturally in the winery. Cultured yeasts are generally used in winemaking. |
| Neutral |
| A wine that has a non-expressive character. |
| New World |
| Generally implies accessible, bold, often full-flavoured (in terms of fruit and wooding). Old World embraces terms like subtle, complex, less oaky, more varied and generally more vinous (than fruity). |
| Oak chips |
| Chips of wood placed in used barrels or stainless steel tanks, used increasingly, as are oak staves to impart wood flavours. Frowned on by some purists still, the 'additives' approximate those of a new barrel and are far cheaper. |
| Oaky |
| Displaying exaggerated oak/wood aromas and flavours (vanilla, spice, char, woodsmoke etc). Young wines can outgrow oakiness, older ones less readily. |
| Oenologist |
| One who studies wine and winemaking. |
| Oenology |
| The study of wine and winemaking. |
| Oidium |
| One of several fungi that can cause severe damage to grape crops; also called powdery mildew. |
| Oxidation |
| Change (usually for the worse) due to exposure to air, in whites often producing dark yellow or yellowish colour (called maderisation). Controlled aeration is used to introduce acceptable and desirable development in wine. |
| Palate |
| A term for the flavour, taste and texture of a wine. |
| Perfumed/scented |
| Strongly fragrant, can be fruity, flowery, animal etc. |
| pH |
| A chemical notation, used in winemaking and evaluation. The pH of a wine is its effective, active acidity - not in volume but by strength or degree. The reading provides a guide to a wine's keepability. The optimum pH for a wine to age is somewhere betwee |
| Phenolics |
| A large group of compounds, found in grapes and wine, including many colour, tannin and flavour compounds. |
| Phylloxera |
| A tiny louse that attacks the root system of wine grape vines, responsible for killing over three million acres of vines in Europe in the 1800s. It arrived in South Africa at the turn of the century. Grafting to resistant rootstock is the only known way t |
| Pomace |
| The debris from grape processing which consists of stems, seeds, pulp and dead yeast cells. It can be distilled into brandy or grappa and is also called press cake. |
| Porty |
| Heavy, over-ripe, stewed; bad in an unfortified wine. |
| Post-fermentation maceration |
| Skin contact with red wines following fermentation. Also called "extended skin contact," the process extracts flavour compounds, colour and tannin, resulting in greater varietal character and more developed tannins. |
| Powdery mildew |
| One of several fungi that can cause severe damage to grape crops; also called oidium. |
| Pruning |
| Cutting back the vegetative part of the vine after it has become dormant. Pruning affects the size and quality of the next year's crop. |
| Pump-overs |
| The pumping of fermenting red wine over the cap of skins to extract more flavour, colour and tannin from the skins. |
| Racking |
| The gravity-siphoning or gentle pumping of the clear wine or juice off the lees for clarifying. Often used as a gentler alternative to filtration, and to aid in the wine's barrel development. |
| Reductive |
| Wine in an unevolved, unoxidised state is said to be 'reductive'; usually with a tight, sometimes unyielding character. Reductive methods (inert gas to cloak grape must is used, especially in white-wine making, to inhibit oxidation. |
| Remontage |
| The process of circulating the liquid in the fermentation tank during red wine fermentation. This aerates the wine, prevents drying on the top, (the cap), and encourages extraction of colour and tannins into the wine. |
| Rich |
| Flavourful, intense, generous. |
| Robust |
| Big and full bodied (but need not mean aggressive). |
| Rootstock |
| The root system of the grapevine to which a fruiting vine of any desired variety, such as merlot, cabernet sauvignon, etc., can be grafted. |
| Rough |
| An aggressive wine, not smooth. |
| Round |
| Well balanced, without rough edges. |
| Second crop |
| Fruit that matures after the first crop has been picked; the clusters are usually smaller and the shoots weaker. "Na-oes" in Afrikaans. |
| Sharp |
| Describes acidity, usually unbalanced. Sometimes sharpish, fresh wine is a good food match, however. |
| Shoot |
| The current season's stem growth that bears leaves and buds. |
| Short or quick |
| Insubstantial wine, leaving the palate quickly. |
| Simple |
| One-dimensional with few flavours. |
| Skin contact |
| In wine-making, leaving the grape skins in contact with the juice or wine for a period of time, and used to extract flavour and colour from grape skins into the grape juice or wine. |
| Stable |
| When wine is in a state in which it will not develop negative characteristics in the bottle, like re-fermentation, premature browning or protein haze. |
| Stalky |
| Unripe, bitter, stemmy. Taste like green wood. |
| Stewed |
| Over-ripe, cooked flavours and scents. Generally not good. |
| Structure |
| Term referring to the wine's components (acid, tannin, alcohol) in relation to its ageing ability; if a wine is deemed to have "the structure to age" it suggests these principal preservatives are in place and the wine is in balance. |
| Sulphites |
| Sulphur-based compounds used to protect wine from oxidation and bacterial activity. |
| Sulphur dioxide |
| Traditionally used to protect wine from oxidation and microbial activity during aging. |
| Supple |
| Desirable yielding, refined texture and flavours. |
| Sur lie |
| Means "aging on the lees," and often referred to as "yeast contact." Wine is aged in the barrel with the yeast retained, rather than being clarified before aging. Aging on the lees increases the complexity and creaminess of the wine. |
| Tannins |
| The group of astringent and bitter compounds found in the seeds and skins of grapes which slow oxidation and promote aging (preservative). Can be harsh and aggressive in a young wine, easing with age. Wooded wines will have wood tannins too. |
| Tartrate crystals |
| Tartaric acid, the primary acid in grapes, forms tiny crystals when chilled. These crystals adhere to the cork or form sediment in the bottle, and are not considered a defect. |
| Terpenes |
| Strong, floral compounds influencing the aromas of especially riesling, gewürztraminer and the muscats; with bottle-age, terpenes often develop a pungent resinous oiliness. |
| Terroir |
| Describes all the influences on the flavours in the wine that come from where the vines grow, especially soil, climate, slope, the aspect of the slope. There is no exact translation in English, but 'terroir' is an important concept in the expression of th |
| Toasting |
| Heating the inside of a barrel during its construction to caramelise the flavours. This impacts the flavour and aromatic characteristics of the wine during barrel aging. Barrels can be lightly or heavily toasted. |
| Toasty |
| When barrel-fermented and aged wines show a pleasant biscuity, charry character. |
| Topping |
| During barrel aging, some water and alcohol evaporate, concentrating the wine slightly and creating an airspace in the barrel. To prevent the harmful effects of oxygen contact with the wine, the barrel is topped-up periodically with the same wine from ano |
| Trellis |
| The wires and stakes that support the vine. |
| Unfiltered |
| Wine that has not gone through a filtering process to clarify it. |
| Varietal Character |
| The character typical of a specific grape variety. |
| Vegetal |
| Grassy, leafy, herby - in contrast to fruity, flowery, oaky. |
| Veraison |
| The stage when grapes begin to soften and gain colour. |
| Viticulture |
| The study of grape growing. |
| Volatile acid (VA) |
| That part of the acidity which can become volatile. A high reading indicates a wine is prone to spoilage. Recognised at high levels by a sharp, 'hot', vinegary smell. In South Africa, most wines must by law be below 1,2 g/l of VA; in practice, the majorit |
| Yeast Autolysis |
| The breakdown of yeast during aging on the lees, in which compounds are released that heighten the sensory qualities of the wine and increase its complexity. |
| Yeasts |
| Micro-organisms that secrete enzymes which convert or ferment sugar into alcohol, carbon dioxide and lesser products. |
| Yeasty |
| Warm bread/baked smells, often prevalent in barrel-fermented whites and méthode champenoise sparkling wines, where yeasts stay in contact with the wine after fermentation (sur lie). |
