The Cooking Inn : Wine Terminology B PageSelect an item from the list to go to it's site
Balance:
The sense you get from a wine when all the components have good equilibrium.
Barrel Aging:
The process of holding wine in oak containers to allow flavor and aromatic compounds to mature and change beneficially.
Barrel Fermentation:
The conversion of grape juice into white wine by yeast in a 60-gallon French oak barrel. Barrel fermentation gives Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc more complexity and integrated oak flavor.
Bitter:
A harsh quality wine can take on. Wine made from grapes that are picked less than optimally ripe, for example, can taste a little bitter.
Blend:
The combining of different lots of wine to make a final wine with certain characteristics. A wine may be a blend of different grape varieties (such as a blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot, for example), or it may be a blend of the same grape variety from different vineyard sites, or even the same grape variety handled differently in the vineyard or during winemaking. In most cases, the goal of blending is to create a wine that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Body:
The weight of a wine in the mouth. Wines are usually described as being either light, medium or full bodied. A wine's body is generally related to the amount of alcohol it contains, the more alcohol, the fuller the body. That said, a wine's body should not be confused with the intensity of its flavor. For example, a wine can be light in body and very intense in flavor at the same time.
Botrytis:
Botrytis Bunch Rot is a vine disease caused by fungus that attacks ripe, white wine grapes. The benevolent form is known as "noble rot" which is responsible for the world's finest sweet wines.
Bouquet:
Cooked beef, shredded and molded with gelatin, and cooked in loaf or
roll. Also available are Jellied Tongue, Jellied Corned Beef and Jellied
Veal Loaf.
Bud:
A small protuberance on a stem or branch, often enclosed in protective scales and containing an undeveloped shoot, leaves or flowers.
Bunch Rot:
Please see Botrytis.
Buttery:
A description of a wine, usually a white wine, that has taken on a slight buttery flavor. This often happens as a result of the wine being barrel fermented and then left for a period of time in contact with the yeast.
