wine terminology
Wine Terminology
What is “Terroir”
Terroir is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop’s phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop’s specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contextual characteristics are said to have a character; terroir also refers to this character.
What is “Sur Lie”
Sur lie literally translates from French as ‘on lees’. Sur lie wines are bottled directly from the lees without racking (a process for filtering the wine). In the case of great Chardonnay, such as Montrachet, this adds a toasty, nutty “hazelnut” quality and additional depth and complexity.
What is “Lees”
Lees are deposits of dead yeast or residual yeast and other particles that precipitate, or are carried by the action of “fining”, to the bottom of a vat of wine after fermentation and aging
What is “Champagne”
Champagne is a French sparkling wine. The term Champagne can be used as a generic term for sparkling wine, but in the EU and some countries it is illegal to label any product Champagne unless it came from the Champagne wine region of France and is produced under the rules of the appellation.
In Champagne, the method Champenoise or ‘traditional method‘ is used. This where the second fermentation happens in the bottle; yeast is added along with sugars (liqueur de tirage). The bottles are left tipped, neck down, in racks, so when fermentation has finished, the dead yeast cells collect in the neck
What is “Méthode Cape Classique/MCC”
In South Africa, they use the term méthode cap classique, or MCC. MCC is a South African term indicating a sparkling wine made in the traditional method (the same way Champagne is made), by which a secondary fermentation takes place inside the bottle.
The 1st MCC was produced in 1971 by Frans Malan from Simonsig.
The term of MCC was used in SA since 1992.
What is “Charmat Méthode”
The Charmat method is a sparkling winemaking process that traps bubbles in wine via carbonation in large steel tanks. This technique is also called metodo Italiano, the Marinotti method, the tank method, or cuve close (“sealed tank,” from the French cuvée, or vat).
What is a “Vintage”
Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product—wine. A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year.
What is “Barrel-fermented”
The term barrel–fermented refers to wine that has been fermented in small oak barrels called “Barrique”, instead of stainless steel or concrete vats and tanks. The process involves turning grape juice into wine and is more often associated with white wines rather than red wines.
