The Terms & Language Wine Club Members Should Know

If you are a recent wine club member or are considering joining a wine club and feel like you have much to learn about the intricate world of wine, it would be helpful to familiarize yourself with the language of wine. Here are some important terms that could help broaden your wine knowledge and help you experience your wine club membership with increased immersion in wine culture:

Terroir is a French word often used in the world of wine. It denotes all of the characteristics of the vineyard site thought to affect a particular wine. Terroir encompasses geography, geology and climate as well as other attributes that influence an allotted area of growth for wine.

Appellation designates the specific region that a wine comes from. Appellation can refer to region or sub-region even.

Varietal simply defines the grape. The main grape used to make a particular wine is designated as the varietal.

The word Cru in the title of a wine is typically indicative that the wine is ranked or graded in some way.

When describing wines you can use wine-specific words. Angular denotes the total effect of dominant, tart-edged flavors and taste impressions in many young dry wines. This description opposes the words round, soft or supple also used to describe wines. You could also use the word briary to describe wines that have an aggressive, prickly taste. The word chewy signifies a high total tannic component of wine. The word suggests that the tannic component is so high that swallowing the wine necessitates chewing first. If a wine is full-bodied it fills the mouth with a winey taste. The term also suggests that the wine has an alcohol content and that it places "weight on the tongue." In contrast you would use the word lean to describe wines in which more body is wanting and to describe wine that is thin in the mouth. This is often a result of too much astringency. Peppery is generally used to describe spicy wines. Wines that are peppery are pungent in quality, in the way that cinnamon and anise are.

The regularly-sent, top-notch selections of the Gold Medal Wine Club allow members to experience the very best in the wine world while providing an enriching variety of exposure so that new wine lovers can become fluent in the language of wine.