Glossary

2

🍷 2,4,6-Trichloroanisole

2,4,6-Trichloroanisole (TCA) is the main compound behind cork taint in wine, giving a musty, mouldy, wet-cardboard off-odour.

🥃 27 CFR Part 5

27 CFR Part 5 is the part of US federal law on labelling and advertising of distilled spirits: mandatory label statements, label approval and standards for whiskey, rum, gin and others.

A

🍷 Acetic acid

The acid of vinegar; wine has a lot of it only when spoiled.

🍷 Acetic acid bacteria

Aerobic bacteria that convert alcohol to acetic acid in wine exposed to air, causing vinegary spoilage.

🍷 Acidification

Raising the acidity of must or wine, most often in a hot year; in the EU allowed in all zones, by no more than 4 g/l.

🍷 Acidity

Acidity in wine is its fresh tartness, set mostly by tartaric and malic acids and shaped by grape ripening and heat.

🥃 Age statement (age on the label)

Age statement: the number of years on a whisky or brandy label, such as “12 Years Old”. Under EU, Scottish and US rules it is the age of the youngest spirit in the bottle; for Scotch it may be given in years only.

🏷️ Aging of wine

The period in which wine matures in barrels, vats or bottles.

🪨 Albariza

A soft white chalky soil of southern Spain near Jerez that soaks up winter rain and feeds the vine in hot summers.

🍷 Alcohol in wine

Alcohol in wine is ethanol made by yeast from grape sugar during fermentation, shown on the label as a percentage by volume.

🍷 Alcoholic fermentation

Yeast eats the sugar in the must and releases alcohol and carbon dioxide.

🍷 Allergen labelling (contains sulphites)

The law requires labels to say "contains sulphites", and in the EU also egg and milk.

🪨 Alluvium

Soil laid down by a river: sand, silt and pebbles.

🏷️ Alsace Grand Cru

The top appellation level of Alsace: 51 named vineyard AOCs, mostly still white wines from Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Muscat.

🍷 Amarone

A dry red DOCG wine from Valpolicella near Verona, made from Corvina and Rondinella grapes dried for months.

🏷️ American Viticultural Area

US legal appellation: a delimited grape-growing region with an official name and mapped boundary, approved under 27 CFR part 9.

🍷 Ampelography

The science of identifying grape varieties by leaves, bunches and DNA.

🍷 Amphora trade

The amphora trade was the ancient shipping of wine and oil in clay jars across the Mediterranean and Black Sea.

🍷 Ancestral method

The oldest method: wine is bottled before fermentation ends, so the gas builds up in the bottle.

🥃 Angels' share

Angels' share is the part of whisky, cognac or rum that evaporates through the cask wood during ageing: in Scotland about 1–2% a year, in Cognac about 2.5%, in the Caribbean up to 10%.

🥃 Anise

Anise (Pimpinella anisum) is an annual plant of the Apiaceae family; its dried fruits, called aniseed, give anethole, the main aroma of ouzo, pastis, raki, sambuca and absinthe.

🌿 Annual growth cycle of grapevines

A vine's year: dormancy, budburst, flowering, berry growth, veraison, harvest, leaf fall.

🍷 Anthocyanins

Highly coloured compounds responsible for the colour of red grapes and red wine.

🦠 Anthracnose (grape)

A fungus that leaves dark spots with pale centres on the berries.

🍷 Appassimento

A method in which grapes are partly dried for months before pressing.

🏷️ Appellation d'origine contrôlée

The French national designation for wine tied to a delimited place and set rules; the national counterpart of the EU protected designation of origin (AOP/PDO).

🥃 Aqua vitae

Latin for “water of life”: a medieval name for distilled spirit, once regarded as medicine. Aquavit, eau-de-vie and whisky (from Gaelic uisge beatha) all derive from it. Today it is a historical term, not a legal category.

Artisan and craft on food labels

Words about small batches and handwork that EU law does not define; in France artisanal is linked to the status of a registered craftsperson.

🍷 Assemblage

Blending wines from different grapes, plots or years before bottling.

🍷 Asti method

A method in which sweet Muscat must ferments once in a tank and the fermentation is stopped.

🏷️ Ausbruch

Austrian wine name: a wine from the Free City of Rust that meets the conditions of Trockenbeerenauslese may be sold as Ruster Ausbruch.

🏷️ Auslese

Prädikat level of German and Austrian wine above Spätlese: from fully ripe or noble-rotted grapes; in Austria, from carefully selected grapes with at least 21° KMW.

🏷️ Austrian Prädikatswein

Austrian ripeness levels from Spätlese to TBA, with their own Ausbruch and Strohwein levels.

B

🏷️ Badisch Rotgold

German traditional term for a PDO wine from Baden made by blending white grapes, also crushed, with red grapes.

🍷 Balance (wine)

Wine balance is when sweetness and body on one side and acidity and tannin on the other offset each other, so nothing sticks out.

🥃 Barley and malt in whisky

Malted barley is the base of whisky: malt enzymes convert starch in the mash, and EU whisky is distilled below 94.8% vol. 'Single malt' means malted barley and one distillery.

Barley flour

Flour from barley (Hordeum vulgare) rich in fibre and beta-glucans; it contains gluten and is blended with durum wheat semolina in some pasta.

🍷 Barrels on ships

Barrels on ships were an old way of carrying wine by sea and river, from Roman fir casks to the wine fleets of medieval Gascony.

🏷️ Barrique

A small 225-litre oak barrel, as used in Bordeaux.

🪨 Basalt

Dark cooled lava that breaks down into warm, stony soil.

🍷 Basket press

An old-style press: a wooden basket with a heavy plate pressing down from above.

🏷️ Beaujolais cru

The 10 best villages of Beaujolais, each with its own appellation.

🏷️ Beerenauslese

Prädikat level of German and Austrian wine from noble-rotted or overripe berries; hand-picked in Germany, at least 25° KMW in Austria.

Beetroot

Red root of the garden beet (Beta vulgaris) that naturally colours pasta pink or red: dried beetroot powder or juice goes into the dough and into gnocchi.

🍷 Bentonite

A clay of the montmorillonite group added to wine to prevent protein and copper hazes.

Best before and use by dates

The two EU date marks: best before is about quality, and food is still safe after it; use by is about the safety of highly perishable food.

🍷 Bikavér

Hungarian traditional term for a PDO red wine from at least three varieties, aged at least 12 months in wooden casks; used only with the PDOs Eger and Szekszárd.

🌿 Biodynamic viticulture

Organic farming plus special preparations and work timed by the lunar calendar.

🏷️ Biological ageing

Ageing under a film of flor yeast that keeps air away from the wine.

🦠 Black rot (grape)

A fungus that turns berries into black, shrivelled "raisins".

🥃 Blending

Blending combines spirits of one kind that differ by cask, age or still; under EU law a blend stays in the category of its components, and the age on the label is that of the youngest spirit.

🍷 Blind tasting

Tasting without seeing the label in order to judge fairly.

🥃 Blue agave

Agave tequilana Weber, azul variety, is the only agave for tequila: the category “Tequila” needs at least 51% of sugars from it, “100% de agave” all of them.

🍷 Body (wine)

Body is the sense of weight and density of a wine in the mouth, shaped by alcohol, glycerol, tannin and mannoproteins.

♨️ Boiling

Home treatment of raw milk.

🌿 Bordeaux mixture

A fungicide of copper sulfate and lime, sprayed on vines against downy mildew.

🏷️ Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855

A list of the best Bordeaux châteaux drawn up for the 1855 World's Fair in Paris.

🍷 Bordeaux Wine Official Classification of 1855

A list of the best Bordeaux châteaux drawn up for the World's Fair in Paris.

🦠 Botrytis bunch rot (grey rot)

Bunch rot in damp weather: the berries get a grey dusty coating and spoil.

🦠 Botrytis cinerea

A fungus that, depending on the weather, causes either grey rot or noble rot.

🍷 Botrytised wine

Sweet wine from grapes with noble rot, with a honeyed taste.

🏷️ Bottle ageing

Wine quietly matures in the sealed bottle.

🥃 Bottled in Bond

US legal label since 1897: spirit from one season and one distillery, at least 4 years in oak barrels under supervision, bottled at 50% ABV (100 proof). A guarantee of origin and age, not of taste.

🍷 Bouquet (wine)

Bouquet is the complex smell of an aged wine: tertiary aromas that develop in barrel and bottle as fruity notes fade.

🍷 Brettanomyces

Brettanomyces is a yeast common in wineries that can spoil wine with volatile phenols, giving the "Brett" character of Band-Aid, medicinal, horsy and barnyard notes.

🧂 Brine

Salty water in which olives ferment and keep, with 5 to 10 % salt.

🍷 Brix

Degree Brix (Bx) expresses the soluble solids of grape juice as a percentage by mass of sucrose, measured from its refractive index.

Bronze die

A bronze pasta die with shaped holes through which dough is pushed; it gives pasta a rough, matte surface.

Buckwheat flour

Flour from buckwheat, which is not a cereal and contains no gluten: used for pizzoccheri and Japanese soba.

🌿 Budbreak

The vine's spring awakening, when the first leaves emerge from the buds.

🍷 Bulk wine

Wine shipped not in bottles but in large batches in tanks.

🏷️ Burgundy Grand Cru

Burgundy's best vineyards; the label shows only the vineyard name.

🍷 Bâtonnage

Stirring the lees in the barrel with a stick to make the wine softer.

C

🦴 Calcium

A mineral that bones and teeth are largely built from: 99% of the body's calcium sits there (EFSA); milk is one of the main sources.

🧪 Calories

The energy that food provides, in kilocalories and kilojoules; 100 g of 3.25% whole milk has about 61 kcal.

🌿 Canopy (grape)

The shoots and leaves of the vine above ground, shaped by shoot thinning and leaf removal.

🏷️ Canteiro

Slow ageing of Madeira in casks under the roof in natural warmth.

🥃 Caraway

A plant of the carrot family (Carum carvi); its dried fruits give caraway spirits (Kümmel) and aquavit their aroma, EU categories 23 and 24.

🍷 Carbon dioxide

A gas released during fermentation; in sparkling wine it stays as bubbles.

🍷 Carbonation

A way to make wine sparkling by adding carbon dioxide to it; in the EU such wines are aerated sparkling or aerated semi-sparkling wine.

🧪 Casein

~80% of milk protein; it curdles into cheese.

🍷 Casein (fining agent)

A milk protein that removes brown colour and bitterness from white wine.

🥃 Cashew apple

The false fruit of the cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale): a juicy 5–11 cm stalk with the nut at its tip; in Goa its fermented juice is distilled into feni.

🏷️ Cava (Greece)

A Greek term for aged table wine; it has nothing to do with Spanish Cava.

🍷 Centrifuge

A fast-spinning drum that throws the haze out of wine.

🪨 Chalk

Soft white limestone that holds water and coolness well.

🍷 Chaptalisation

Adding sugar to must to raise the alcohol of wine in a cool year; in the EU by at most 3 % vol in zone A.

🥃 Charentais alembic

Copper pot still from the Charente region, the only apparatus allowed for cognac: white wine is distilled twice over open fire; pot up to 30 hl, spirit up to 73.7% ABV.

🍷 Charmat method

A way of making sparkling wine in which the second fermentation takes place in a closed pressure-resistant tank rather than in the bottle.

🥃 Cherry (sour and sweet)

Stone fruits behind kirsch (cherry brandy distilled from sweet cherries), maraschino (liqueur from Marasca cherry), cherry liqueurs and palinkas; in the EU kirsch is at least 37.5% ABV.

🥚 Chicken egg

The egg of the domestic hen: in pasta it gives yellow colour, an elastic dough and protein, and in the EU it must be highlighted on labels as an allergen.

Chickpea flour

Flour from dried chickpeas with no gluten and about 22 g of protein per 100 g, used for legume pasta.

🥃 Chill filtration

Chilling whisky to about 0 °C or below and filtering it to remove fatty acids and esters that cloud it when cold or with water. Below about 46% ABV a haze can appear without it.

🧪 Cholesterol

Found in milk fat.

🔄 Churning

Turning cream into butter: fat grains stick together and buttermilk drains off; under EU law butter contains at least 80 % fat.

🥃 Cinchona tree

Genus of Andean trees whose bark yields quinine. The bark gives bitterness to bitters, amaro, quinquina and tonic water, and quinine treated malaria for centuries.

🍷 Citric acid

Grapes contain a little citric acid, and it is sometimes added.

🍷 Clarification of wine

How wine is made clear: fining, bentonite, filtration, centrifugation and racking under OIV and EU rules.

🏷️ Classic and Selection

German labels for dry wines of balanced or outstanding quality, introduced in 2000.

🏷️ Classico

Wine from the old, most historic heart of a district, such as Chianti Classico.

🪨 Clay

A dense sticky soil that holds moisture and cold for a long time.

🌿 Climate and wine

A place's usual weather: warmth, rain, sun and winds.

🌿 Climate change and wine

Warming moves the harvest earlier and pushes vineyards north and up into the mountains.

🌿 Clone (grapevine)

The offspring of one best vine, propagated from cuttings without seeds.

Codex standard for honey (CXS 12-1981)

The international Codex Alimentarius (FAO/WHO) standard for honey: definition, composition, labelling and methods; adopted in 1981.

❄️ Cold chain

Unbroken cold from milking to the home fridge: cool to 4 °C within 3–4 hours, no warmer than 10 °C in transit.

🍷 Cold maceration

Steeping chilled must with the skins before fermentation starts.

❄️ Cold pressing

Making oil without heating the paste above 27 °C; a label term for quality oil.

🍷 Cold stabilisation

Chilling wine so that tartrate crystals drop out at the winery rather than in the bottle.

🏷️ Collection wine

The best vintage wine, given extra ageing in bottle.

🥃 Column still

Continuous distillation apparatus of tall columns with plates; its improved version was patented by Aeneas Coffey in 1830, giving lighter and stronger spirit than a pot still.

🥃 Common juniper (Juniperus communis)

Conifer shrub or small tree of the cypress family; its berry-like fruits are a required ingredient in gin, genever and other EU juniper-flavoured spirit drinks.

🌾 Common wheat

The most widely grown wheat species, milled into flour for bread, fresh and egg pasta, spätzle and noodles.

🔄 Condensing

Evaporating part of the water from milk: with sugar it gives sweetened condensed milk, without sugar evaporated milk.

🌿 Continental climate

Climate far from the sea: hot summers and cold winters.

🍷 Continuous method

A method where wine with yeast flows non-stop through a chain of tanks and absorbs gas.

🌿 Cool climate

Places with short summers: wines are fresh, tart and lower in alcohol.

❄️ Cooling

Quickly cooling fresh milk to 4 °C within 3–4 hours of milking to stop bacteria; in the EU on the farm it is no more than 8 °C.

🍷 Cooperage

The workshop where barrels for wine, beer and whisky are made from oak staves: the wood is seasoned, the staves toasted and bent, and the oak and toast shape the drink's flavour.

🌿 Cordon training

Vine training with a permanent horizontal "arm" along a wire.

🍷 Cork taint

Cork taint is a wine fault with a musty, mouldy, wet-cardboard off-odour, caused mainly by 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA).

Creaming honey

Controlled crystallisation: liquid honey is mixed with fine honey crystals so that it sets into a soft creamy mass.

🏷️ Criadera

The upper rows of barrels in a solera, where younger wine matures.

🏷️ Crianza

Spanish red aged for at least 2 years, half a year of it in oak.

🏷️ Cru Artisan

A title for small family estates in the Médoc.

🏷️ Cru Bourgeois

Quality classification of Médoc châteaux with three levels, renewed every five years; the latest was announced in 2025.

🍷 Crushing

Lightly breaking the berries to split the skins and release the juice without crushing seeds or stems.

🍷 Cryoextraction

Artificial freezing of grapes in a cold chamber to make the juice sweeter.

🍷 Crémant de Luxembourg

Luxembourg traditional term for a PDO sparkling wine from hand-harvested grapes, bottle-fermented by the traditional method, with at least 4 atmospheres of pressure and less than 50 g/l of sugar.

🍷 Cultured yeast

Selected wine yeast added to grapes or must to start or complete fermentation.

🔄 Curdling

Rennet coagulates casein into a curd (the basis of cheese).

Curing of meat

Curing of meat is treatment with salt, often with nitrite, applied dry, as brine or by injection: salt binds water and, together with drying, makes meat suitable for long keeping.

🌿 Cutting

A piece of vine shoot from which a new plant grows.

🦑 Cuttlefish ink

Dark fluid from the ink sac of the cuttlefish (Sepia) that turns pasta black — Italian nero di seppia; as a mollusc it is an allergen.

🍷 Cuvée

A batch or blend of wine; for sparkling wine, the product destined for secondary fermentation; in Champagne, also the first fraction of the pressed juice.

🏷️ Czech and Slovak predicate wines

Czech and Slovak grape ripeness levels from kabinet to ice wine and straw wine.

D

🏷️ DAC

Austrian designation Districtus Austriae Controllatus for regionally typical quality wine, stated together with the area defined by regulation.

🍷 Deacidification

Lowering the acidity of wine or must, most often after a cold year; in the EU by no more than 1 g/l.

🍷 Dealcoholisation

Removing alcohol from finished wine.

🚚 Delivery

The last link of the dairy chain: in the US, direct delivery of fluid milk fell from 54% in 1954 to 19% in 1971.

🍷 Dessert wine

A sweet wine served with dessert; it can be still or fortified.

🍷 Destemming

Separating berries from the stems before fermentation so that the wine is less astringent and free of herbaceous notes.

🏷️ Deutscher Wein

The simplest German category, formerly Tafelwein.

🍷 Diacetyl

A buttery-smelling compound formed during malolactic fermentation.

Diastase activity

Diastase activity is the activity of the enzyme diastase in honey on the Schade scale; an indicator of freshness and of no overheating.

🍷 Disgorgement

Removal of the deposit gathered on the closure of a bottle of sparkling wine after second fermentation in the bottle.

🥃 Distillation

Distilling a fermented liquid: ethanol evaporates before water, the vapour is cooled and collected; in batches in a pot still or continuously in a column. It is how whisky, brandy, rum, vodka and gin are made.

🚚 Distribution

From plant to store, pasteurized milk is kept at 5–7 °C, while sealed ultra-pasteurized milk can travel without refrigeration.

🏷️ DO (Spain)

The Spanish traditional term for a wine with a protected designation of origin.

🏷️ DOC (Italy)

Italian traditional term for wine with a protected designation of origin (PDO), used together with DOCG.

🏷️ DOC (Portugal)

The Portuguese traditional term for a wine with a protected designation of origin.

🏷️ DOCa / DOQ

Spanish traditional term for a PDO wine from a denomination that meets extra requirements beyond the ordinary denominación de origen.

🏷️ DOCG

The higher of the two Italian categories of protected-origin wine, with stricter rules than DOC and checks on every batch.

🍷 Dosage

An addition to sparkling wine after disgorging that sets its sweetness.

🥃 Double distillation

Batch pot-still method: the first run gives a weak spirit (20–32% ABV), the second is cut into heads, heart and tails. It is how cognac and single malt Scotch are made.

🦠 Downy mildew

A disease of damp weather: yellow spots on leaves with white down underneath.

🌿 Drip irrigation

Watering through tubes that drip water right to the roots of each vine.

🌿 Drought

A long spell without rain; a little dryness helps, but a severe one kills the vine.

🔄 Drying

Removing water from milk: at the plant, condensed milk is sprayed into hot air to make a powder with up to 5% moisture, while nomads have long dried fermented milk curd in the sun.

DSTU 4497:2005 "Natural honey" (Ukrainian standard)

The Ukrainian national standard for natural blossom honey and blossom honey with honeydew: requirements, labelling and test methods.

🌾 Durum wheat

A wheat species with very hard grain and strong gluten, milled into semolina for dry pasta and couscous.

Durum wheat germ

The embryo of the durum wheat kernel, rich in fat, protein and vitamin E; removed in milling and added back to semolina in Garofalo Strapasta.

E

E numbers (food additives)

Codes of food additives authorised in the EU: on the label an additive appears by its function, such as preservative, antioxidant or colour, followed by its name or E number.

🏷️ Edelzwicker

French traditional term in German for PDO Alsace wines made from one or more grape varieties set in the appellation's specification.

🍷 Egg white fining

Whipped egg white softens the tannins of red wine in the cask.

🏷️ Eiswein

A Prädikatswein level: wine from grapes frozen on the vine.

Emmer

One of the oldest wheats (Triticum dicoccum), a hulled relative of durum wheat sold in Italy as farro; it contains gluten and gives rustic wholemeal pasta.

🍷 En primeur

En primeur is the sale of wine futures: a wine is reserved before it has been bottled.

🏷️ Erstes Gewächs

The name for dry wines from the best vineyards in the Rheingau.

🦠 Erysiphe necator

The fungus behind grape powdery mildew, brought to Europe from America.

🦠 Esca

A wood disease: fungi rot the trunk and the vine can wither in a single day.

🏷️ Estufagem

Heating Madeira in tanks to quickly give it the taste of an old wine.

🍷 Ethanol

The alcohol formed during fermentation that makes you drunk.

🥃 Ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin

Ethyl alcohol made only from agricultural raw materials such as grain, potatoes, molasses or grapes; under EU law at least 96% ABV with strict limits on impurities. The EU term for the neutral spirit behind vodka, gin and liqueurs.

🏷️ EU wine categories

The EU list of 17 types of wine and must, from ordinary wine to wine vinegar.

🦠 European grapevine moth

A moth whose caterpillars eat the berries and open the way to rot.

🥃 Ex-bourbon barrel

American white oak cask of 180–200 litres used for bourbon: bourbon may only be aged in new charred casks, so used ones go to Scotch, Irish whiskey and rum, and show as “Bourbon Cask” on labels.

🍷 Excise on wine

A tax on the sale of alcohol, including wine.

🏷️ Extra virgin olive oil

Top category of olive oil: mechanical extraction only, no taste defects, free acidity up to 0.8 g per 100 g; confirmed by a tasting panel.

F

Fairtrade Mark

A private mark owned by Fairtrade International: producers receive a minimum price and an extra premium, checked by the independent certifier FLOCERT.

Farmhouse on food labels

A word with no general EU definition for packaged food; the exception is French fromage fermier, cheese made on the farm from the farm's own milk.

Fava bean flour

Flour from dried fava (broad) beans (Vicia faba), rich in protein and naturally gluten-free; it and faba bean protein go into high-protein pasta.

🔄 Feeding

How dairy cows are fed: about 18 kg of feed dry matter a day at peak lactation; feed is roughly half of a dairy farm's costs.

🥃 Fennel

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a carrot-family plant whose dried fruits, rich in anethole, flavour anise drinks, anisette and absinthe, alongside common anise and star anise.

🔄 Fermentation

Lactic acid bacteria turn lactose into acid and the milk thickens.

🍷 Fermentation

The work of yeasts or bacteria that turn sugar into alcohol or acid.

🍷 Fermentation temperature

White wines ferment cool and reds warmer, which changes the taste.

🔄 Filling

Packing milk at the plant: pasteurised milk under clean, cold conditions, UHT milk aseptically into sterile containers.

🔄 Filtration

Removing impurities from milk: on the farm, a sieve or filter before the tank; at the dairy plant, a mesh filter, a clarifier and membranes that hold back even bacteria.

🍷 Filtration of wine

Passing wine through a filter that holds back haze and yeast.

🍷 Fining

Adding an agent to wine that binds certain components and settles out with them.

🍷 Finish (wine)

The finish is the flavour and aroma that stay in your mouth after you swallow or spit a wine; tasters time it in seconds.

🦠 Flavescence dorée

A dangerous vine disease spread by a leafhopper; leaves turn yellow or red.

🍷 Flexitank

A huge soft bag inside a shipping container that holds 24,000 litres of wine.

🪨 Flint (silex)

A hard stone in the chalky soils of the Loire, sometimes linked to a flinty taste.

🍷 Flor

A film of yeast on the surface of wine in a barrel that shields it from air.

🍷 Fortification

Adding grape spirit to stop fermentation and make the wine stronger.

🍷 Free-run juice

Juice that runs off on its own before pressing, the most delicate.

❄️ Freezing

Freezing a milk mixture: with stirring it becomes ice cream; in moulds without stirring, kulfi.

🥃 French brandies

France's three main spirits with protected names: cognac and armagnac from white wine, calvados from Normandy cider; oak ageing, bottled at 40% ABV or more. VS, VSOP and XO work differently in each.

🍇 From grapes to must

The first steps at the winery: sorting, destemming, crushing and pressing — the road from bunch to must.

🌿 Frost

A cold night below zero that kills young buds in spring.

🌿 Frost candles

Pots of burning paraffin set in the rows to warm the vines at night.

🔄 Frothing

Working air into hot milk to make foam for coffee; coffee bars heat the milk to about 65–70 °C.

🍬 Fructose

The second main sugar in grapes, sweeter than glucose.

Frying and drying instant noodles

Frying and drying instant noodles is the last stage: after steaming, the strands lose their water, down to a few percent moisture, by frying in oil at 140–160 °C or by drying with hot air.

🌿 Fungicide

A product against fungal plant diseases.

G

🏷️ Garrafeira

Portugal's finest aged wine from a single harvest.

🍷 Gelatin fining

Animal gelatin removes excess harsh tannins.

🏷️ Geographical indication (Australia)

Australia's legally protected place names for wine, registered under the Wine Australia Act 2013.

🥃 Geographical indication (GI) of spirit drinks

A name of a spirit drink protected in the EU for a specific country, region or locality, when its quality or reputation comes from that place: Scotch whisky, cognac, grappa. Register: eAmbrosia.

🏷️ Georgian PDO wines

More than 20 protected wine names in Georgia, such as Tsinandali and Kindzmarauli.

🍬 Glucose

One of the two main sugars in grapes.

Gluten-free on food labels

A protected EU claim: gluten-free means no more than 20 mg of gluten per kilogram, very low gluten no more than 100 mg/kg; Regulation 828/2014.

🍷 Glycerol

A mildly sweet sugar alcohol that yeast produces during fermentation and that is found in wine.

🌿 Gobelet (bush vine)

A vine without support, shaped like a low bush or cup, an old Mediterranean method.

🌿 Grafting

Joining two plant parts so they grow together as one.

🏷️ Gran Reserva

A Spanish red wine from the best years, aged at least 5 years.

🏷️ Grand cru

The top rank of the best vineyard sites, especially in Burgundy, Alsace and Champagne.

🏷️ Grand cru classé

The title of a château included in one of the Bordeaux classifications.

🪨 Granite

A hard granular rock that breaks down into poor sandy soil.

🌿 Grape

The berries of the grapevine, whose juice becomes wine, juice and raisins.

🌿 Grape berry

A single grape: skin, juicy pulp and seeds.

🦠 Grape berry moth (Eupoecilia)

Another moth whose caterpillars damage flowers and berries.

🌿 Grape cluster

A bunch of berries on a shared stalk.

🌿 Grape harvest

Picking ripe grapes for wine, timed by sugar, acidity and pH.

🌿 Grape harvester

A tall machine that drives over the vine rows and shakes off the berries.

🌿 Grape leaf

The vine's leaf; it helps identify the variety and is used to make dolma.

🦠 Grape mite

A tiny mite that leaves felt-like blisters on the leaves.

🌿 Grape pulp

The juicy middle of the berry, holding sugar and acids.

🌿 Grape ripeness

The stage when berries are ready to harvest for a wine style: sugar, acid, phenolics and aroma.

🌿 Grape seed

The hard seed inside a grape, which gives bitterness when crushed.

🍷 Grape seed oil

A vegetable oil pressed from grape seeds left after winemaking.

🌿 Grape skin

The thin outer layer of the berry, holding colour, tannin and aroma.

🌿 Grape stem

The small branch that holds the berries of a bunch.

🍷 Grape sugar

Glucose and fructose in the berries; yeast turns them into alcohol.

🍷 Grape treading

An old method: grapes are crushed with bare feet in a vat or stone trough.

🌿 Grape variety

A type of vine with its own berries, taste and growth habits.

🌿 Grapevine

A perennial climbing plant on which grapes grow.

🦠 Grapevine diseases

Fungi, bacteria and viruses that harm the vine and the crop.

🌿 Grapevine flowering

A brief spell in early summer when small fragrant flowers bloom on the vine.

🦠 Grapevine leafroll

A virus that makes leaves curl and redden while berries ripen poorly.

🌿 Grapevine nursery

A farm where young vines are grown and grafted for planting.

🦠 Grapevine pests

Insects, mites and animals that eat the vine or its berries.

🌿 Grapevine roots

Vine roots go deep into the ground, seeking water between the stones.

🌿 Grapevine seedling

A young rooted vine ready to be planted in a vineyard.

🪨 Gravel

A layer of small stones that is warm and drains water well.

🏷️ Graves classification

The official list of the best Graves châteaux in Bordeaux, first published by INAO in 1953, adjusted in 1959 and now counting 14 châteaux.

🔄 Grazing

Livestock graze grass on pasture themselves; Irish cows graze from mid-February to late November, and grass costs a quarter of concentrate per kg.

🌿 Green harvest

Cutting off some unripe bunches in summer so the rest ripen better.

🏷️ Grosses Gewächs

A dry wine from a Grosse Lage site, marked GG on the bottle.

🌿 Guyot training

A pruning method that keeps one or two long fruiting canes.

🍷 Gyropalette

A machine that turns hundreds of bottles at once instead of riddling by hand.

H

🌿 Hail

Balls of ice from the sky that batter leaves and bunches within minutes.

🌿 Hail net

A net over or along the rows that protects against hail and birds.

🌿 Hand harvesting

Picking bunches by hand with secateurs, gently on the berries.

Hand-pulled noodles

Hand-pulled noodles are made by stretching dough by hand into strands instead of cutting it with a knife: this is how Chinese lamian and Japanese tenobe noodles, such as hand-stretched somen, are made.

🌿 Harvest crate

A small crate or back basket for picked bunches.

🥃 Heads, hearts, tails

The three parts into which a distiller divides spirit during pot distillation: heads (foreshots) with the most volatile substances and methanol, the heart for the drink, and tails (feints) with heavy fusel oils.

🍷 Health warning label

A sign or warning about the harm of alcohol for pregnant women and drivers.

🌿 High-altitude vineyards

Vineyards high in the mountains, warm by day and cool at night.

HMF in honey

HMF is a by-product of fructose breakdown that rises in honey during heating and storage; the main indicator of deterioration.

🏷️ Hock

German traditional term for a medium-sweet white wine with a protected geographical indication (PGI) from the Rhine wine-growing zone.

Homemade on food labels

A word with no EU definition for packaged food; in France only the restaurant label fait maison has clear rules.

🔄 Homogenization

Breaking up milk fat globules under 10–25 MPa pressure, from 3.5 µm to under 1 µm, so the cream does not rise to the top.

Honey adulteration

Replacing or diluting honey with cheap sugar syrups and masking its origin; in the EU it was examined by the coordinated action "From the Hives".

Honey crystallisation

The natural process in which glucose in honey forms crystals: honey thickens, turns lighter and becomes solid or creamy; it is not a sign of spoilage or fake honey.

Honey extraction

Spinning honey out of uncapped combs by centrifugal force in an extractor.

Honey origin labelling

EU rules on stating the countries where honey was harvested, including for blends; the new rules apply from 14 June 2026.

Honey ripening

The stage in the comb when bees dehydrate nectar or honeydew, add substances of their own and seal the ripe honey with wax.

🥃 Horno

Spanish for ‘oven’: the chamber where agave hearts are baked for tequila and mezcal; brick and pit ovens are used, and the autoclave is the modern alternative.

🍷 Hospices de Beaune

An old hospital in Burgundy that sells its wine at auction every November.

🍾 How sparkling wine is made

How bubbles get into wine: a second fermentation in bottle or tank, the ancestral method, or added carbon dioxide.

How to carve jamón

Carving jamón is knife work: the leg is fixed in a stand, rind and fat are trimmed, and slices 2–3 mm thick are cut with a long flexible knife at 20–24 °C.

🌿 Hybrid grape

Varieties bred by crossing European grapes with American or Asian ones.

I

Iberian ham labels: black, red, green, white

The jamón ibérico label (pata negra, Iberian ham seal) is a four-colour tag under Spanish Royal Decree 4/2014: black, red, green or white. The colour shows the pig's Iberian breed share and feeding.

🍷 Ice wine

Sweet wine from grapes frozen on the vine; the ice stays behind and the sweet juice is pressed out.

🏷️ IGT

Italian traditional term for wine with a protected geographical indication (PGI/IGP).

🏭 Industrial dairy products

Products of the industrial age (from the 19th century): condensing, spray drying, infant formula, factory ice cream and cheeses.

🥃 Infusion

A way to give a spirit flavour, aroma and colour: herbs, spices, fruit, bark or nuts steep in alcohol until their aromatic compounds pass into the liquid. This is how sloe gin and limoncello begin.

🍷 International Organisation of Vine and Wine

An intergovernmental scientific and technical organisation for vines, wine and other vine products, established in 2001.

🧪 Iron

Milk from any animal is low in iron; camel milk, according to several studies, has slightly more than cow's milk.

🌿 Irrigation

Supplying water to vines in dry places.

🌿 Isabella (grape)

An old American variety with a strawberry scent, popular in gardens.

🍷 Isinglass

Fish glue made from the swim bladder of fish such as sturgeon, used as a fining agent for white and rosé wines.

🥃 Island whisky

An unofficial group of Scotch whisky from the islands of Skye, Orkney, Mull, Jura, Arran, Lewis, Harris and Raasay; under the Scotch Whisky Regulations they belong to the Highland region.

J

🏷️ Joven

A young Spanish wine with little or no ageing.

🍷 Jurançon

A sweet white wine from south-west France made from grapes shrivelled on the vine.

K

🏷️ Kabinett

The lowest of the six German Prädikat levels: no enrichment allowed and at least 7% vol. of actual alcohol.

Kansui

Kansui is an alkaline additive of potassium and sodium carbonates or phosphates that is kneaded into the dough of Chinese noodles and ramen to make them yellow and springy.

Khorasan wheat

Ancient large-grained wheat (Triticum turanicum) related to durum wheat, best known under the KAMUT® trademark; it contains gluten and gives golden pasta.

🪨 Kimmeridgian marl

A soft limestone-clay rock of the Upper Jurassic, full of fossil oysters, that lies under the Chablis vineyards.

🏷️ Klosterneuburger Mostwaage

The Klosterneuburger Mostwaage (°KMW) is the Austrian scale of must weight; the Weingesetz 2009 sets minimum °KMW values for Landwein, Qualitätswein and Prädikatswein.

L

🏷️ Labelling

Package data: name, ingredients, date, storage; in the EU the rules come from Regulation 1169/2011, applied since 13.12.2014.

🧪 Lactic acid

An organic acid that lactic acid bacteria make from lactose; it sours fermented milk and appears on labels as E270.

🧫 Lactic acid bacteria

Bacteria that convert sugars such as lactose into lactic acid.

🧪 Lactoferrin

A protein that binds iron and protects mucous membranes; about 7 g/L in human colostrum and about 1 g/L in mature milk.

🧪 Lactose

Milk sugar, ~4.8%.

Lactose-free on food labels

A claim with no single EU threshold: countries set the limit, with Germany and Italy using under 0.1 g of lactose per 100 g; milk remains an allergen.

🏷️ Lampante olive oil

Mechanically obtained oil with taste defects; it is not sold for eating without refining.

🏷️ Landwein

German and Austrian term for wine with a protected geographical indication; at least 85% of the grapes come from the named area.

🍷 Late harvest wine

Wine from overripe grapes: under EU rules at least 15 % total alcohol with no enrichment.

🌿 Leaf removal

Removing some leaves around the bunches so they get air and sunlight.

🦠 Leafhopper

A small jumping insect that sucks sap and spreads diseases.

🍷 Lees

Dead yeast at the bottom after fermentation, which gives wine roundness.

🍷 Lees ageing

Wine rests for a long time on dead yeast and picks up flavours of bread and brioche.

🍷 Legal drinking age

The minimum age for buying alcohol, including wine; most often 18, depending on the country.

🏷️ Liebfraumilch

German traditional term for a medium-sweet white PDO quality wine from the Nahe, Rheingau, Rheinhessen or Pfalz, at least 70 % Riesling, Silvaner, Müller-Thurgau or Kerner.

🪨 Limestone

A rock formed from ancient shells; it gives wines freshness and finesse.

🥃 Lincoln County Process

Filtering new whiskey through sugar maple charcoal before barrel ageing; Jack Daniel's says the state of Tennessee recognizes this step as the Lincoln County Process.

🍷 Liqueur d'expédition

A mix of wine and sugar used to top up the bottle after disgorging.

🍷 Liqueur de tirage

The product added to the cuvée before tirage to start the second fermentation of a sparkling wine: wine or part of the cuvée with sugar, must or concentrated must.

🪨 Loess

Fine yellow dust laid down by the wind; soft and fertile.

🥃 Los Altos de Jalisco

Highland region in eastern Jalisco around Arandas: red iron-rich soils at about 2,000 m above sea level, where about 70% of the blue agave for tequila is grown. No protected name of its own.

M

🍷 Maceration

Steeping the juice with the skins to extract colour, tannins and aroma.

🌿 Machine harvesting

Harvesting with a machine that shakes the vine so the berries fall into a hopper.

🍷 Madeira and the sea voyage

Madeira and the sea voyage is the story of how tropical journeys in ships' holds changed the wine of the island of Madeira and led to today's estufagem and canteiro.

Maize flour

Flour milled from dried maize kernels; it contains no gluten and, mixed with rice flour, is the base of most gluten-free pasta.

🌀 Malaxation

Slow mixing of olive paste before the decanter centrifuge so that tiny oil droplets merge; usually 30–40 minutes at 18–27 °C.

🍷 Malic acid

One of the two main organic acids of grapes, along with tartaric acid.

🍷 Malolactic fermentation

Bacteria turn sharp malic acid into soft lactic acid.

🥃 Malting

Turning grain into malt: barley is soaked, germinated for 4–6 days and dried; the malt enzymes then convert the mash's starch into sugars for whisky and beer.

🥃 Maltster

A specialist or company that makes malt from barley for distilleries and breweries; most Scottish distilleries buy malt from maltsters to their own specification.

🔬 Mammal

The class of animals that feed their young with milk.

🪨 Marl

A mix of clay and lime, a dense and cool soil.

🥃 Mashing

A stage in the production of whisky and other grain spirits: crushed malt is mixed with hot water, malt enzymes turn starch into sugars, and a sweet wort for fermentation results.

🌿 Mediterranean climate

Dry hot summers and mild rainy winters, as around the Mediterranean Sea.

🍷 Membrane filtration

A very fine filter that holds back even bacteria.

🏷️ Menzione geografica aggiuntiva

An Italian mark for a named plot within a district, like a French cru.

🥃 Methanol poisoning

Serious poisoning by methyl alcohol from counterfeit or home-made spirits: early signs resemble drunkenness, after 6–30 hours come abdominal pain and visual disturbance; urgent medical care is needed.

🍷 Methuen Treaty

A 1703 treaty cut duties on Portuguese wine in England, boosting Port.

🍷 Micro-oxygenation

Controlled addition of tiny amounts of oxygen to wine, slower than the wine consumes it (OIV).

🌿 Microclimate

The particular weather of a small spot: a slope, a valley, a riverbank.

🧪 Milk fat

~3.5% in cow's milk.

🔄 Milk reception

The first stage of handling milk at the dairy: checking, measuring volume, cooling below +4 °C and storing in silos of 50,000–500,000 litres.

🔄 Milking

2–3 times a day, by hand or by machine.

🍷 Minerality

A disputed word for stony, slightly salty sensations in wine.

🥃 Minimum alcoholic strength

In the EU a spirit drink must be at least 15% ABV, and each category has its own floor: whisky 40%, rum, vodka and gin 37.5%, liqueur 15%. In the US, 40% ABV is 80 proof.

🥃 Mizunara

Mizunara is Japanese Quercus crispula oak from Hokkaido, used for Japanese whisky casks: sandalwood, coconut and incense. The tree grows slowly, and the casks are complex and costly.

🍯 Miód pitny

Miód pitny, or mead, is a drink made by fermenting honey with water. Four Polish types (czwórniak, trójniak, dwójniak and półtorak) have been EU traditional specialities since 2008. It is not distilled.

🏷️ Moldovan IGP regions

Moldova's four protected wine indications, three of which are wine areas.

🍷 Must

Juice of fresh grapes, obtained by crushing or pressing, that has not yet become wine.

N

🏷️ Nama

Greek traditional term (Νάμα) for sweet PDO or PGI wines used for Holy Communion.

Natural casing for sausages

Natural casing is the cleaned intestine, bladder or stomach of pigs, sheep or cattle used to fill sausages and some cured cuts; EU rules allow it only if salted, heated or dried, and several PDO and PGI products require it.

Natural on food labels

A word with no general definition in EU law, limited only by the ban on misleading claims and a few exact formulas such as natural flavouring and naturally high in.

Nitrite and nitrate in cured meats (E 249–E 252)

Nitrite and nitrate (E 249–E 252, curing salt) are EU-authorised preservatives of cured meats. Regulation 2023/2108 lowered the limits: from 9.10.2025 non-heat-treated products may have up to 80 mg/kg added nitrite.

Noble mould on dry sausages

Noble mould is the thin white coat of Penicillium moulds on dry sausages that regulates drying, shields the meat from light and oxygen and gives a typical look and flavour.

🍷 Noble rot

A beneficial form of the fungus Botrytis cinerea on ripe berries: the skin becomes permeable, water evaporates and the juice concentrates several times over.

🏷️ Noble, Añejo, Viejo

Spanish ageing terms: noble from 18 months, añejo from 2 years, viejo from 3 years.

Nutri-Score

A voluntary A to E colour scale on the front of the pack that rates nutritional quality per 100 g or 100 ml, introduced in France in 2017.

O

🏷️ Oak ageing

Wine matures in oak barrels and gains aromas of vanilla, toast and spice.

🍷 Oak chips

Pieces of oak in a tank instead of a barrel, a cheap way to get an oaky taste.

🌿 Oceanic climate

A seaside climate: mild and damp, without great heat or frost.

🏷️ Oechsle scale

German unit of must weight: the density of grape must compared with water, in degrees Oechsle (°Oe).

🏷️ OEM (Hungary)

A Hungarian wine category with a protected place of origin.

🍷 Oenococcus oeni

The main lactic acid bacterium that conducts malolactic fermentation in wine, able to survive high alcohol and low pH.

🍷 Oenology

The science of wine and how it is made.

🏷️ OFJ (Hungary)

Hungarian category for wine of a locality with loose rules.

🍷 OIV International Code of Oenological Practices

A set of approved winemaking methods, from fining to sulphites.

🏷️ Old vines

Grapevines officially documented as 35 years or older (OIV definition, 2024).

🧪 Oleic acid

A monounsaturated fatty acid, the main one in olive oil; Kalamata oil contains 70–80 %.

🧪 Oleuropein

The bitter substance of fresh olives and olive leaves; because of it, fruit straight from the tree is inedible until treated.

⚙️ Olive crushing

Grinding olives with their stones into a paste with millstones or a hammer crusher.

🧺 Olive harvest

Picking olives by hand, with poles or with tree shakers, usually in autumn and winter.

🔄 Olive oil filtration

Passing fresh oil through a filter to remove haze and water droplets.

🏷️ Olive pomace oil

Oil extracted from the pomace left after pressing, refined and blended with virgin olive oil.

🏷️ Ordinary wine

A Ukrainian and Moldovan category of simple unaged wine, sold in the year of harvest.

Organic food (EU organic logo)

Food certified under EU rules: at least 95 % of farm ingredients organic, with the green leaf logo and a control body code on the pack.

🌿 Organic viticulture

Growing grapes without synthetic poisons or fertilisers.

🍷 Oxidation of wine

Oxidation of wine is a change caused by oxygen: the aroma turns honeyed, nutty, cider- or hay-like and the colour darkens.

🏷️ Oxidative ageing

Ageing with air contact: the wine darkens and takes on flavours of nuts and dried fruit.

🍷 Oxygen

A gas in the air: in small doses it helps wine mature, in large ones it spoils it.

P

🍷 Passerillage

Drying grapes right on the vine to make them sweeter.

🍷 Passito

Italian wine from partly dried grapes, usually sweet.

Pasta shape numbers by brand

Catalogue numbers that pasta makers print on the pack to identify each shape; every brand uses its own system.

🍷 Pasteurisation of wine

Brief heating of wine to stop microbes and enzymes; the method was described by Louis Pasteur in an 1866 book.

🌡️ Pasteurization

72–75 °C for 15–20 seconds: kills pathogens; keeps ~7–10 days chilled.

🏷️ PDO (Greece)

The Greek protected-origin wine category, covering about 33 areas.

Pea flour

Gluten-free flour from dried yellow or green peas (Pisum sativum), used for legume pasta; pea protein from the same seed boosts high-protein pasta.

🍷 Pea protein fining

A plant protein used instead of egg and milk for fining.

🥃 Percolation

An extraction method in which alcohol slowly passes through a layer of herbs, roots or coffee and takes up flavour; faster than maceration, but less selective.

🌿 Pergola

A high trellis on which the vine's shoots form a roof of leaves.

Pfund colour scale

The Pfund scale expresses honey colour in millimetres of optical density; it underlies the colour grades from Water White to Dark Amber.

🏷️ PGI (Greece)

A Greek regional wine category, formerly "topikos oinos".

🍷 PH of wine

A number showing how acidic a wine is, usually between 3 and 4.

🌿 Pheromone mating disruption

Capsules with a female scent confuse moths so they cannot find a mate.

🧪 Phosphorus

Works with calcium for the bones.

🍷 Photosynthesis

The work of leaves turning sunlight and air into sugar.

🦠 Phylloxera

A tiny aphid from America that destroys the roots of European vines.

🦠 Pierce's disease

A bacterium that blocks the vine's vessels; it is spread by leafhoppers.

Pimentón (Spanish smoked paprika)

Pimentón is Spanish paprika ground from dried red peppers; Pimentón de la Vera PDO is dried over oak smoke, Pimentón de Murcia PDO is made from Bola peppers, and both colour and flavour chorizo and sobrasada.

🌿 PIWI grape varieties

New varieties resistant to fungal diseases that need fewer sprayings.

🌿 Planting density

How many vines grow on one hectare.

🦠 Plasmopara viticola

A fungus-like organism from America that causes downy mildew.

🍷 Pneumatic press

A drum with a soft bladder inside that gently squeezes the berries with air.

Pollen analysis of honey (melissopalynology)

Microscopic counting of pollen grains and honeydew elements in honey, used to check its botanical and geographical origin.

Pollination by honey bees

Pollination by honey bees is the transfer of pollen between flowers as bees collect nectar and pollen; colonies are kept for crop yields as well as for honey.

🍷 Polyphenols

A large group of natural compounds in grapes and wine: red pigments, tannins and resveratrol.

🍷 Pomace

Skins, seeds and stems left after crushing or pressing.

🍷 Pomace cap

The layer of skins that floats to the top as red wine ferments.

🥃 Pot still distillation

Pot still distillation is batch distillation: fermented liquid is heated in a copper pot and the vapour is cooled. It is the method behind single malt Scotch, Irish pot still whiskey and cognac, and keeps a fuller flavour than a column.

🍷 Potassium metabisulfite

Potassium metabisulphite is a white powder used in wine for the sulphur dioxide it releases.

Potato

The starchy tuber of Solanum tuberosum: the main ingredient of potato gnocchi.

🦠 Powdery mildew (oidium)

A fungus that coats leaves and berries with a white, flour-like dust.

🏷️ Premier cru

The second rank of good vineyard sites after grand cru.

🍷 Press juice

Juice or wine squeezed out by the press; coarser and more tannic.

🔄 Pressing

Squeezing whey out of the cheese curd.

🍷 Pressing (wine)

Squeezing the liquid out of grapes before fermentation or out of the pomace after it; according to the OIV, slowly and progressively.

🍷 Primary aromas

Primary aromas are the smells of wine that come from the grape itself: terpenes, norisoprenoids and methoxypyrazines, set by variety and growing conditions.

🏷️ Protected designation of origin (PDO)

The EU mark for a product made entirely in one defined area, from raw material to finished food, under registered rules.

🏷️ Protected designation of origin (wine)

An EU label: the wine is made only in its own area and only from local grapes.

🍷 Protected geographical indication

A protected name for wine from an area with looser rules.

🏷️ Protected geographical indication (wine)

An EU label: wine from a defined area with looser rules than a PDO.

🍷 Prošek

A Croatian traditional term for a dessert wine from dried, overripe grapes from Dalmatia: at least 13% vol and 60 g/l of sugar.

🌿 Pruning shears

Garden shears for pruning vines and cutting bunches.

🏷️ Prädikatswein

The top German category: wine graded by grape ripeness, with no added sugar.

🪨 Pudding stones (galets roulés)

Large smooth river stones that warm up by day and warm the vines at night.

🥃 Pulque

Pulque is a traditional Mexican drink of fermented agave sap (aguamiel), milky and cloudy, 4–7% ABV. It is not a distillate like tequila or mezcal, and it spoils quickly.

🍷 Pump-over (remontage)

Pumping must from the bottom of the vat and pouring it over the cap on top.

🍷 Punch-down (pigeage)

Pushing the cap of skins down into the must with a paddle or feet.

🍷 Pupitre

A wooden rack with slanted holes where bottles are placed for riddling.

🍷 Puttonyos

The old measure of Tokaji sweetness: how many baskets of sweet berries were added to the cask.

🍷 PVPP

PVPP is an insoluble synthetic polymer added to wine as a processing aid to lower tannin and other polyphenols.

Q

✅ Quality control

Fat, protein, bacteria, antibiotics, acidity.

🏷️ Qualitätswein

Qualitätswein is the German and Austrian legal term for quality wine with a protected designation of origin, tested officially and shown with a test number.

Quinoa

Gluten-free seed of an Andean plant (Chenopodium quinoa), a pseudocereal rich in protein; its flour is added to maize and rice in gluten-free pasta.

R

🍷 Racking

Moving wine from one vessel to another so that the deposit stays behind; without air or with aeration.

🍷 Racking cane (siphon)

A tube for moving wine by gravity without stirring up the sediment.

Rainforest Alliance seal

A private mark with a frog: farms and supply chains are checked against the Rainforest Alliance sustainable agriculture standard; most common on tea, coffee and cocoa.

Raw honey

Raw honey is a marketing term for honey that has not been strongly heated or finely filtered; EU law and the Codex standard do not define it.

🚛 Raw milk transport

Farm → dairy plant by milk tanker, usually within a day.

🍷 Recioto

A sweet Italian wine from semi-dried grapes, from Valpolicella or Soave.

🥃 Rectification

Rectification is continuous column distillation: vapour condenses and evaporates many times on the plates, and the spirit is purified to about 96% ABV. It gives the neutral spirit behind much vodka and gin.

Red lentil flour

Orange flour from hulled red lentils with no gluten: the base of protein-rich legume pasta.

🍷 Reduction (wine)

Reduction is a wine fault in which volatile sulfur compounds give smells of rotten egg, onion or cooked cabbage.

🏷️ Refined olive oil

Oil refined to remove taste and smell defects, usually from lampante; acidity up to 0.3%.

🍷 Refractometer

A handheld instrument: a drop of juice on the glass gives an estimate of the sugar in grapes, in degrees Brix.

🏷️ Regional appellation

The broadest appellation, for wine from a whole region, such as Bourgogne.

Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 on food additives

The EU law on food additives: the list of authorised E numbers, in which foods and in what amounts, and the EFSA re-evaluation of older additives; applies from 20 January 2010.

Regulation (EU) 2018/848 on organic production

The EU law on organic food: rules for farming, processing and labelling, the 95 % rule, the EU logo and the control body code; applies from 1 January 2022.

Regulation (EU) 2019/787 on spirit drinks

The EU law on spirits: 44 categories from rum and whisky to egg liqueur, minimum strengths, age statements and geographical indications. Applies from 25 May 2021.

Regulation (EU) 2024/1143 on geographical indications

The EU law on protected names: PDO, PGI and TSG for food, wine and spirits in one system; applies from 13 May 2024 and replaced Regulation 1151/2012.

Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers

The main EU law on food labels: 12 mandatory items, allergens, dates, font size and nutrition; in force since 13 December 2014.

Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 on the common market organisation

The EU market law that defines product names and categories for wine, olive oil and dairy, wine labelling and wine PDO/PGI. Applies from 1 January 2014.

🧫 Rennet

An enzyme (chymosin) that curdles milk for cheese.

🏷️ Reserva (Portugal)

A Portuguese label for aged wine of higher quality.

🏷️ Reserva (Spain)

Spanish red wine aged at least 3 years, one of them in oak.

🏷️ Reserve and Grande Reserve (Greece)

Greek ageing terms for PDO wines.

🍷 Reserve wine

Wine from past years kept to blend into new sparkling wine.

Rice flour

Finely milled rice with no gluten: the second base of gluten-free pasta after maize and the raw material of rice noodles.

🍷 Riddling

A stage of the traditional sparkling-wine method: bottles are gradually turned and tilted neck-down so the sediment collects in the neck for disgorging.

🍷 Ripasso

Valpolicella refermented on the grape skins left over from Amarone.

🔄 Ripening

Maturing cheese for weeks to years.

🏷️ Riserva

An Italian label for wine aged longer than the region's usual rules require.

🏷️ Roble

Spanish wine that spent a short time, a few months, in oak.

🏷️ Romanian DOC

A Romanian category with ripeness levels: ripe, late harvest and noble rot.

🌿 Rootstock

The root part of a grafted vine, usually from American grapes resistant to phylloxera.

🥃 Rye and corn in whisky

Grain in the name of American whiskey: bourbon is at least 51% corn, rye at least 51% rye, corn whiskey at least 80% corn. 'Straight' means at least two years in the barrel.

S

🍷 Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The main yeast of wine, bread and beer.

🏷️ Saint-Émilion classification

The official classification of the estates of the AOC Saint-Émilion grand cru in Bordeaux, in place since 1955 and revised every ten years.

🧂 Salt

Added to cheese and butter.

🪨 Sand

Loose soil made of grains of sand, where phylloxera can barely survive.

🍷 Sauternes

The famous sweet white wine of Bordeaux made from grapes with noble rot.

🥃 Sazerac

The Sazerac is New Orleans' classic cocktail: rye whiskey or cognac, sugar and Peychaud's bitters in a glass rinsed with absinthe. Since 2008 it has been the official cocktail of the city.

🪨 Schist

A layered rock that splits easily, letting roots grow between the layers.

🌿 Scion

The upper part of a vine of the desired variety, grafted onto a rootstock.

🥃 Scotch Whisky Association (industry body)

The Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) is the trade body of Scotch whisky producers, based in Edinburgh with an office in London. It has over 90 member companies and traces its roots to 1912.

🥃 Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009

Scotch Whisky Regulations 2009 (SI 2009/2890) is a UK statutory instrument in force since 23 November 2009: the legal definition of Scotch, five categories, protected regions and labelling rules.

🍷 Secondary aromas

Secondary aromas are wine smells made during fermentation: esters, higher alcohols and the buttery note of diacetyl from lactic acid bacteria.

🍷 Secondary fermentation

Fermentation of finished wine with sugar and yeast, which creates the bubbles.

Semolina

Coarse, yellowish meal ground from durum wheat: the main raw material of dry pasta.

🔄 Separation

Splitting milk into cream and skim milk in a centrifugal separator at 55–65 °C; the skim milk keeps only 0.04–0.07% fat.

🍷 Sforzato

A dry red wine from partly dried Nebbiolo in Alpine Valtellina.

🥃 Sherry butt

A sherry butt is an oak cask of about 500 litres that once held sherry and now matures whisky; it gives a darker colour and notes of dried fruit.

🍷 Skin contact

The time juice or wine spends together with the grape skins.

🪨 Slate

A dark flat stone that warms up by day and gives the heat back to the vine at night.

🌿 Slope (vineyard)

A vineyard's tilt toward the sun; in Europe south-facing slopes are warmer.

🔄 Slow baking

Ukrainian slow-baking (pryazhennia): milk is held at 95–99 °C for 3–5 hours until creamy and baked-tasting; baked milk is soured into ryazhanka.

Smoking of meat

Smoking of meat is treating meat with smoke from smouldering wood, either cold at 15–18 °C over several days or hot at 60–80 °C for up to an hour, for flavour, colour and partial preservation.

🥃 Snifter glass

The snifter is a short-stemmed glass with a wide bowl and a narrowed rim, traditional for brandy and cognac; it is also called a brandy balloon.

🧼 Soap

A washing agent made from fats and lye; Nabulsi and Aleppo soaps have long been made from olive oil.

🧪 Sodium hydroxide (lye)

An alkali (sodium hydroxide, E524) whose weak solution (1.3–3.5%) removes bitterness from table olives; a caustic substance to be handled with care.

🪨 Soil

The top layer of earth that holds vine roots, water and tiny creatures.

🪨 Soil drainage

How well soil lets excess water drain down instead of standing in puddles; it decides how much water and air vine roots get.

🏷️ Solera

Criaderas y solera: a dynamic way of ageing wine in scales of casks, with periodic «sacas» and «rocíos»; the classic system of sherry.

🍷 Sorting table

A table or moving belt where rotten and unripe berries, leaves and debris are removed by hand before crushing.

🥃 Sour mash

Sour mash is how most bourbon and Tennessee whiskey is made: 10–25% of sour backset from the previous distillation goes into fresh mash to lower the pH and keep fermentation stable.

🦠 Sour rot

Spoilage of split berries with a vinegary smell, spread by fruit flies.

🏷️ Spanish ageing categories

Spanish labels by ageing time: Joven, Roble, Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva.

Spelt

An old hulled wheat (Triticum spelta) with a nutty taste; it contains gluten and is milled into semolina and flour for spelt pasta.

🥬 Spinach

Leafy vegetable (Spinacia oleracea) that naturally colours green pasta: dried spinach goes into the dough, cooked leaves into ricotta fillings.

🦠 Spotted-wing drosophila

A small fly that lays its eggs in ripe berries.

🏷️ Spätlese

Prädikat level of German and Austrian wine made from fully ripe grapes harvested late; in Austria the juice must reach at least 19° KMW.

🔄 Standardization

Fat content is adjusted to 1.5 / 2.5 / 3.2%.

🧫 Starter culture

A culture of lactic acid bacteria that ferments milk.

🌡️ Sterilization

Heating milk above 100 °C to commercial sterility: in-container 110–125 °C for 3–40 min; ultra-pasteurisation 135–150 °C for a few seconds.

Storing honey

How container, temperature and moisture decide how long honey stays fresh, liquid or crystallised, and free of fermentation.

🍷 Straw wine

Sweet wine made from grapes partly dried before pressing; in EU law, wine from raisined grapes.

🍷 Strohwein

Austrian wine from grapes dried on straw or reeds.

🏷️ Strong fortified wine category

A Ukrainian and Moldovan category of low-sugar fortified wines, such as port and sherry.

🍷 Stuck fermentation

When the yeast stops working too early and sugar is left behind.

🍬 Sugar

Sucrose added to condensed milk, ice cream and sweet yogurts; WHO advises that free sugars supply less than 10% of daily energy.

🥃 Sugar cane and molasses

Raw materials of rum, cachaça and other cane spirits: cane juice or molasses; rum made from them is at least 37.5% ABV in the EU.

🍷 Sulphites (SO2)

Sulphur dioxide and sulphites protect wine from microbes and oxidation; in the EU dry red wine may contain up to 150 mg/l.

🍷 Sulphur candle (barrel)

Burning a sulphur strip in an empty barrel to keep it from going mouldy.

🌿 Sulphur dusting

Sulphur powder against powdery mildew, an old remedy.

🏷️ Superiore

An Italian label for wine slightly stronger or aged longer than the standard one from the same area.

🌿 Sustainable viticulture

An approach that takes care of the soil, water, people and nature around.

🍷 Sélection de grains nobles

A complementary mention of the Alsace appellation for white wines made from hand-harvested overripe grapes with a high minimum sugar content, always followed by the grape name.

T

🥃 Tahona

Tahona is a volcanic stone wheel in a pit that slowly crushes roasted agave hearts and presses out the juice for tequila or mezcal.

🍷 Tannins

Substances from skins, seeds and oak that make the mouth feel dry and puckery.

🍷 Tartaric acid

The main acid of grapes, found in comparatively few other plants.

Tea oxidation

Tea oxidation is the reaction in which the tea leaf's own enzymes turn catechins into theaflavins and thearubigins; how long it runs decides whether tea becomes green, oolong or black.

🍷 Tears of wine

Tears of wine are drops that form and run down the inside of a glass, driven by a surface tension gradient.

Teflon die

A pasta die with Teflon (PTFE) inserts in its openings through which dough is pushed; it gives a smooth, glossy surface.

🪨 Terra rossa

Red clay over limestone, coloured by iron oxides.

🌿 Terroir

Everything that makes a place special for wine: soil, climate, slope and people.

The 14 EU allergens

Fourteen food groups that EU rules require to be named and highlighted in the ingredients: from gluten cereals, milk and eggs to celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites and lupin.

🍷 Tirage

Bottling wine with sugar and yeast for a second fermentation.

🍷 Tokaji

Eight types of PDO «Tokaj» wine: from dry whites to aszú with a minimum of 120 g/l sugar.

🍷 Tokaji Aszú

Tokaji aszú is a sweet wine speciality of the Tokaj PDO, made by steeping hand-picked botrytised aszú berries in must or wine.

🍷 Tokaji Eszencia

Tokaji eszencia is a Tokaj PDO wine speciality: the must that seeps by its own weight from hand-picked botrytised aszú berries, with at least 450 g/L sugar.

🍷 Tokaji Fordítás

Tokaji made by pouring wine over the pomace left after aszú.

🍷 Tokaji late harvest

A lighter sweet Tokaji made from late-picked grapes.

🍷 Tokaji Máslás

Tokaji made on the yeast lees left over from Aszú.

🍷 Tokaji Szamorodni

Tokaji szamorodni is a Tokaj PDO wine speciality made from bunches that include botrytised aszú berries; it is dry or sweet.

🍅 Tomato

Fruit of the tomato plant (Solanum lycopersicum) that gives pasta dough its red colour: tomato powder or concentrate goes into tricolour pasta and fillings.

🏺 Traditional dairy products

Products made for centuries to folk recipes: fermenting, cheesemaking, slow baking, drying. Tied to regions and peoples.

🍷 Traditional method

A way of making sparkling wine: second fermentation in the bottle, at least 9 months on the lees and removal of the sediment by disgorgement.

Traditional speciality guaranteed (TSG)

The EU mark for a product made to a traditional recipe or method used for at least 30 years, wherever it is produced.

🍷 Transfer method

The wine ferments in the bottle, then is emptied into a tank, filtered and rebottled.

🌿 Trellis

Posts with wire that the vine grows along and leans on.

🥃 Triple distillation

Triple distillation means distilling three times in copper pot stills: the spirit becomes lighter and stronger than after two distillations; used in Ireland and the Lowlands.

🏷️ Trockenbeerenauslese

Prädikat level of German and Austrian wine from largely shrivelled noble-rotted berries; hand-picked in Germany, at least 30° KMW in Austria.

🪨 Tuff

A soft rock made of compacted volcanic ash.

Turmeric

Spice from the rhizome of Curcuma longa: a pinch of ground turmeric makes egg noodles, Spätzle and lemon pasta a deeper yellow.

U

🌡️ UHT processing

Heating milk to at least 135 °C for a few seconds, with aseptic packing: an unopened carton keeps for months without a fridge.

🏷️ Ukrainian dessert wine category

A Ukrainian and Moldovan category of sweet fortified wines: semi-sweet, sweet and liqueur.

🏷️ Ukrainian PDO wine

A Ukrainian wine category with protected place of origin modelled on the EU.

Uncapping

The first step of honey processing: removing the thin wax layer with which bees sealed the cells of ripe honey.

V

🏷️ VDP classification

A private ranking of top German estates by vineyard site, like Burgundy's crus.

🏷️ VDP Grosse Lage

The top VDP level: Germany's best sites, like a grand cru.

🏷️ VDQS

An old French tier between vin de pays and AOC, abolished in 2011.

Vegan and vegetarian on food labels

Claims with no single EU legal definition: Regulation 1169/2011 called for separate rules, and meanwhile national guidance and private marks such as the V-Label apply.

🍷 Vendanges tardives

A mention of Alsace AOC white still wine made from very ripe, hand-picked grapes of Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris or Muscat.

🏷️ Village appellation

Burgundy wine from the vineyards of one village, ranked below Premier Cru.

🏷️ Villages

The word Villages in the name means the wine comes from the region's best villages.

🏷️ Vin de France

Vin de France is the French designation for wine without a geographical indication, made from grapes harvested and vinified in France.

🏷️ Vin de garde

Wine that gets better after many years in the bottle.

🍷 Vin de paille

French straw wine, especially from the Jura.

🏷️ Vin de pays / IGP

French wine with a protected geographical indication (IGP); the traditional mention «vin de pays» may replace it on the label.

🍷 Vin Santo

A sweet amber Italian wine from dried grapes, aged for a long time in small barrels.

🌿 Vine pruning

Cutting back extra shoots in winter so the vine gives fewer but better grapes.

🏷️ Vinea Wachau categories

Three tiers of dry Wachau wines: Steinfeder, Federspiel and Smaragd.

🌿 Vineyard

A plot of land planted with grapevines.

🌿 Vineyard inter-row

The strip of ground between vine rows used by people and machines.

🌿 Vineyard terraces

Steps on a steep slope held up by stone walls.

🏷️ Vinho Regional

Portuguese wine from a large region with flexible rules.

🏷️ Vino (Italy)

The simplest Italian wine category, with no region named.

🏷️ Vino de Calidad con Indicación Geográfica

A Spanish tier between Vino de la Tierra and DO.

🏷️ Vino de la Tierra

The traditional Spanish term for wine with a protected geographical indication (IGP/PGI), for example “Vino de la Tierra de Castilla”.

🏷️ Vino de Pago

A Spanish traditional term for wine from a single «pago», a rural site with its own soil and microclimate, under a protected designation of origin.

🍷 Vino dulce natural

Spanish traditional term for a PDO liqueur wine: at least 85 % listed varieties, must with at least 212 g/l natural sugar, sweetness kept by adding grape spirit, with no other enrichment.

🏷️ Vino generoso

Spanish traditional term for a dry PDO wine or dry liqueur wine (Jerez, Montilla-Moriles, Málaga and others) from white grapes, matured under flor and aged an average of at least two years in oak.

🍷 Vinsanto of Santorini

A Greek sweet wine from grapes dried in the sun on the island of Santorini.

🏷️ Vintage

The year the grapes for the wine were harvested.

🌿 Vintage

The year the grapes were picked; that year's weather shows in the wine's taste.

🏷️ Vintage-quality wine

A Ukrainian and Moldovan category of aged quality wine from a specific area.

🏷️ Vintners Quality Alliance

Ontario's legal appellation-of-origin system for VQA wine, set by the Vintners Quality Alliance Act, 1999.

🏷️ Virgin olive oil

Oil obtained by mechanical means with slight taste defects: acidity up to 2%, defect median up to 3.5.

🧪 Vitamin A

Found in milk fat.

🧪 Vitamin B12

Found only in animal-source foods.

🍊 Vitamin C

A water-soluble vitamin: adults need about 40 mg a day, while a cup of cow’s milk (240 ml) has only about 5 mg.

🧪 Vitamin D

A fat-soluble vitamin that helps absorb calcium; the NHS advises 10 µg (400 IU) a day, and cow’s milk in Britain is usually not fortified.

🌿 Viticulture

The science and craft of growing grapes.

🌿 Vitis amurensis

A wild grape of East Asia, very frost-hardy and a parent of many hybrids.

🌿 Vitis berlandieri

An American wild grape that copes well with limestone soils.

🌿 Vitis labrusca

A North American grape species with a "foxy" and strawberry aroma.

🌿 Vitis riparia

An American wild grape from riverbanks, resistant to frost and phylloxera.

🌿 Vitis rupestris

An American wild grape from rocky slopes, used for rootstocks.

🌿 Vitis vinifera

The European grape species used for almost all the world's wine.

🏷️ Viñedo Singular

A Spanish mark for a single outstanding vineyard.

🏷️ VOC (Czech Republic)

A Czech wine category with a taste typical of its district, similar to the Austrian DAC.

🍷 Volatile acidity

Volatile acidity is the share of volatile acids in wine, mostly acetic acid; a trace is in every wine, a lot smells of vinegar.

🪨 Volcanic soil

Soil formed from weathered volcanic rock such as lava, basalt and tuff; vines grow on it on Santorini and Pico Island.

🌿 Véraison

The stage when berries soften and start to colour; ripening begins.

W

🌿 Warm climate

Places with hot summers: wines are ripe, soft and stronger.

🧪 Water

~87% of milk.

Wheat flour

Finely ground common wheat: in Italy it is used for home-made fresh and egg pasta, in Germany for spätzle.

🧪 Whey protein

A group of milk proteins that stay in solution once casein is precipitated: about 19% of the protein in cow's milk, mainly beta-lactoglobulin.

Whole wheat flour

Flour from the whole grain, bran and germ included, used for wholewheat pasta (integrale) with more fibre.

🌿 Wild grapevine (Vitis sylvestris)

The wild ancestor of cultivated grapes, growing in the forests of Europe and the Caucasus.

🍷 Wild yeast

Wild yeasts live on grapes, in the vineyard and in the cellar and start fermentation on their own when no cultured yeast is added.

🧪 Wine adjustment and stabilisation

What happens to wine after fermentation: alcohol and acidity are adjusted, sulphites added, and the wine is clarified, cold-stabilised and racked off its lees.

🍷 Wine aroma

The smells of wine coming from the variety, fermentation and ageing.

🍷 Wine aroma wheel

The Wine Aroma Wheel is a circular chart of standardized wine aroma terms created by Ann C. Noble at the University of California, Davis.

🍷 Wine auction

Selling rare wines to whoever bids the most.

🌿 Wine belt

Bands of land between 30 and 50 degrees latitude where vines grow best.

🍷 Wine colour

Colour of wine, set by phenolic compounds and changing with age.

🍷 Wine cooperative

Cooperative of grape growers that make wine together.

🍷 Wine faults

Unpleasant smells and tastes caused by mistakes, microbes or poor storage.

🍷 Wine ingredient list (EU 2023)

Since December 2023, EU wine labels show ingredients and calories, often via a QR code.

🍷 Wine list

A restaurant's list of wines with prices.

🏷️ Wine of Origin

South Africa's system of wine places of origin.

🍷 Wine press

A machine that separates juice from grapes by pressure.

🍷 Wine rating

Scoring a wine with points after tasting.

🍷 Wine routes

Tourist routes through wine country with cellars and tastings.

🍷 Wine shop

A shop that sells wine and helps you choose.

🍷 Wine tank truck

A wine tank truck is a lorry or trailer with a stainless steel tank that carries wine in bulk from a winery to a bottling plant or buyer.

🍷 Wine tanker ship

A wine tanker ship carries wine in bulk by sea in stainless steel tanks, tank containers or flexitanks, with inert gas and temperature control.

🍷 Wine tasting

Careful tasting: looking at the colour, smelling, tasting and judging.

🍷 Wine tourism

Trips to wineries and vineyards to look around and taste.

🏷️ Wine without geographical indication

The simplest EU category; the variety and vintage may be shown.

🍷 Winemaking

Turning grapes into wine: from picking and sorting to fermentation, ageing and the bottle.

🍷 Winery

A place where grapes are turned into wine.

🍷 Winkler index

A way to compare the warmth of different places by adding up the season's warm days.

🥃 Wormwood

Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) is a perennial herb with a bitter taste, the basis of absinthe and Pelinkovac; in the EU thujone in drinks made from Artemisia species is limited to 35 mg/kg.

Y

🍷 Yeast

Microscopic fungi that turn sugar into alcohol and gas.

🌿 Yield (wine)

How much grape or wine a hectare gives; less often means tastier.

É

🏷️ Échelle des crus

A percentage rating of Champagne villages: 17 grand cru and 42 premier cru.

Themes