ANTHOCYANIN: The pigment that gives red wine its color, which is found in the skin of the grape. The thicker the grape’s skin, the more color and opacity it delivers to the wine.
AROMATICS: The floral term for the scents you perceive in a wine.
BERRY: Winemaker and grower’s term for an individual grape. BOTRYTIS CINEREA: A fungus that affects fruits, including grapes. Often referred to as “noble rot” when particularly wet conditions are followed by dry. Botrytis cinerea doesn’t destroy the grapes but rather produces higher sugar content that can lend a honey flavor to wines. In solely wet conditions, it can destroy the bunches.
BLENDING TRIALS: process used by vintners whereby they blend wines with different characteristics to produce a single, balanced wine with a strong beginning, middle and end on the palette.
BLIND TEST: A format for wine tasting where the tasters have no information about the wines other than what they can determine with their senses.
BRIX: The unit of measure for the amount of sugar within a grape. It is measured with a refractometer and used to determine ripeness and harvest date.
BUD BREAK: The point when new shoots emerge, or break out, from the buds on a grapevine. This takes place in early spring and begins the grapevines' growth cycle for the year.
ESTATE WINES/ESTATE WINERY: By U.S. government standards, for a wine to be labeled “estate” 100 percent of it must be made from grapes grown on land owned by the winery (or controlled by the winery).
LOIRE: Referring to the Loire Valley wine region in France that stretches east from the Atlantic coast at Nantes to within 90 miles of Chinon, Bourgeuil and Samur-Champigny most especially. Like the Finger Lakes region, Cabernet Franc is grown in abundance here and is renowned and respected by wine aficionados.
MERITAGE (rhymes with “heritage”): Created by a group of vintners and registered with the U.S. Department of Trademarks and Patents, the term refers to a category of American blended wines made from Bordeaux grape varieties. Wines termed Meritage must meet a specific set of standards.
NOSE: Aromas perceived in a particular wine; also called bouquet.
SORTING: Removing the diseased grapes from those of the quality you want to keep. At Sheldrake, sorting is done first in the vineyard when pickers are told to leave affected fruit on the vine. Then, grapes are moved slowly along a conveyor belt while we remove whatever grapes don't represent the quality we want to use.
TANNINS: Compounds that give wine its mouth feel and combine with anthocyanins to play a role in the color of red wine.