Your Guide to Wine Terminology
Whether you're new to wine or looking to expand your tasting vocabulary, this curated glossary is designed to help you navigate the language of wine with confidence and clarity. From aroma to tannin, each term unlocks a deeper understanding of what’s in your glass—and what makes it special.
Use this guide as a reference as you sip, swirl, and savor your way through pairings, tastings, and conversations. The more you know, the more richly you’ll experience every bottle.
Acidity: A natural part of wine that creates a lively taste and balances out the sweet and bitter components. The liveliness and crispness that acidity brings activate our salivary glands. Too much acid results in an overly tart, sharp, or sour wine; too little makes it flat and flabby. Acetic acid, citric acid, tartaric, malic acid, and lactic acid are most common.
Aeration: This is the deliberate addition of oxygen to round out and soften a wine. Exposing wine to air so that it can "breathe" before drinking releases aromas and opens up flavors much like swirling wine in a glass does.
Aftertaste: The taste or flavors that linger in the mouth after tasting wine, also known as a "finish". This is the most significant factor in assessing a wine's character and quality.
Aroma: The scent of a wine. Young wines have aroma. balanced wine, will posses these components in proportion to one another.
Balance: A term for when the elements of wine - acids, sugars, tannings, and alcohol - come together in a harmonious way.
Body: The sense of thickness on the palate resulting from a mix of the wine's alcohol content, sugar levels, and dissolved solids. A good analogy for wine body is milk - a light-bodied wine is akin to nonfat milk, medium-bodied wine is like a whole milk, and a full-bodied wine feels similar to a creamer.
Bouquet: The complex aromas that develop with age.
Brut: A term for dry Champagne or sparkling wine.
Buttery: Descriptor for rich flavor and smoothness of texture. Often referred to oak-aged white wines; many Chardonnay, white Burgundies.
Cassis: A black currant flavor common in Cabernet Sauvignon.
Chalky: Describes an extremely dry finish.
Corked: A term that denotes a wine that has suffered cork taint which is the undesirable aromas and flavors in wine often associated with wet cardboard or moldy basements. This does not relate to wine with cork particles floating about.
Crisp: Describes clean acid on the finish of a white wine.
Earthy: This describes a mineral character that can add interest to the palate.
Finish: Final impression the wine leaves.
Fruity: Apple, black currant, cherry, citrus, pear, peach, raspberry, strawberry; describes a wine in which the fruit is dominant.
Full-Bodied: Full proportion of flavor and alcohol; big, fat.
Grassy: The aroma of hay or cut grass, not unpleasant unless exaggerated. Usually found in Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc.
Honeyed: Smell or taste reminiscent of honey, characteristic of late-harvest wines affected by “noble rot.”
Legs: The viscous rivulets that runs down the side of the glass after swirling or sipping.
Nose: The smell of the wine; a “good nose” is pleasant and inviting, an “off nose” is somewhat offensive.
Oak: Aroma and flavor derived from aging wine in Oak casks or barrels. Oak is characterized by; smokiness, vanilla, clove and other spices.
Oxidize: Wine that has spoiled, from over-exposure to air.
Pepper: A component in either the nose or the palate, that smells or tastes of bell or cracked pepper.
Smoky: Tobacco aroma or flavor that is associated with Oak aging.
Sommelier: French for wine steward; a manager in a restaurant who has charge of wines and their service.
Spicy: Wines that posses the distinct aroma or character of spice; clove, mint, cinnamon or pepper.
Sulphur: An antioxidant used in making most wines. Fermentation produces minimal amounts of sulfur.
Tannin: The skins, seeds and stems of grapes will naturally produce tannins. This is a predominant feature in red wine. Tannic wines produce a puckering or drying-out of your tongue. Tannin will mellow with age.
Vanilla: The aroma and/or taste of vanilla beans imparted by Oak aging.
Varietal: Refers to the distinguishing features of each grape variety.
Velvety: Smooth and rich texture.
Woody: Excessive aroma of wood, common in wines over-aged in casks or barrels.
