Argentina is the sixth-largest wine-producing country and the most significant in South America in terms of volume. Most of the country’s wine comes from the Andes foothills in the areas surrounding the now-famous Mendoza, including its best sparkling wines…
In a sharecropping arrangement known as “Métayage,” a vine farmer, or “Métayer,” rents a vineyard or a portion of a vineyard, and makes payments in the form of wine or grapes
The process of “Ouillage,” also known as filling, entails maintaining the barrels full during their time in the cellar…
The process of separating clear wine from its deposits, sometimes called “lees,” is known as “Soutirage” in French.
When it comes to white wines, we refer to the juice that spontaneously drips from the crushed grapes before the grapes are sent to the press as “Moût de goutte” …(click to read more)…
A Champagne “Dégorgement Tardif” (often abbreviated DT) can also be called Champagne Récemment Dégorgé (RD) depending on the terminology used by each Champagne House. The two terms designate the same reality and are generally translated in English under the generic labelling term “Late-Disgorged” …(read more)…
The French term “passerillage” refers to the process of drying, shriveling (see the définition of “flétri” here), or raisining grapes on the vine in order to concentrate their sugar content. It serves as an alternative to wine with high sugars from botrytis (where the noble rot plays a crucial role Read more…
Although over-extraction is becoming a regular mistake nowadays because people correlate quality with color, “extraction” in the context of wine typically refers to the extraction of valuable phenolics from grape solids before, during, and after fermentation. Wines with excessive extraction lack balance and fruit expression.
The process that causes tiny particles to group together is called “flocculation.” The traditional method (Méthode Champenoise) of manufacturing sparkling wine involves this intended process. The lees will flocculate and gradually travel toward the bottle neck during the second fermentation that takes place in the bottle (i.e., the traditional method).
“Rancio” is an expression that refers to wines that have acquired a particular bouquet and taste thanks to long aging in barrels exposed to the sun. We can therefore say that they have undergone a kind of beneficial maderization that has led to an improvement in their qualities while also Read more…