Coulure

While this French word (pronounced koo-lyur) probably won’t do much to influence your ability to taste and appreciate different characteristics of wine, I’m featuring it just because I think it’s cool information to know! (Plus, it such a pretty-sounding word – that is, if you don’t butcher it like this American does.)

Photo from www.chaigne.fr

During flowering in the spring, wind and rain, as well as chemical deficiencies, can keep the flowers on a vine from being properly fertilized, causing these flowers to drop off the cluster. This dropping of flowers is called coulure.

Since each flower is responsible for a grape, the cluster of grapes that eventually forms is loose and missing grapes. If the improperly fertilized flower stays attached, it produces a puny, seedless grape called a “shot” grape. Although the yield is reduced, there is a corresponding benefit: loose clusters allow for increased air circulation, and are then less susceptible to rot in humid conditions.

(winespectator.com)

Volatile Acidity

All wines have a very small amount of volatile acidity; however, in excess, V.A. causes a wine to have a sharp and unpleasant vinegary aroma and sour taste. It occurs when unwanted bacteria have produced acetic acid, the result of poor winemaking.

(Warning: When consumed in large quantity, wine — whether with or without V.A. — can cause said consumer to be both volatile and acidic.)

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil and winespectator.com)

Unfiltered

Unfiltered is used to describe a wine that has not been filtered to clarify it. Filtering is a process where the wine is pumped with a screen or pad to remove leftover grape and fermentation particles. Unfiltered wines are sometimes less than brilliantly clear.

Some winemakers leave their wine unfiltered because they believe filtering strips wine of some flavors and texture. They sometimes choose to label their wines as unfiltered, although there are no regulations that they must do so.

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil)

Fat

I couldn’t resist this one, since many of us might be feeling this way after the holidays… (and I blame the absence of Wine Word of the Week for the last few weeks on the holidays, too.)

Fat is a descriptive term for the texture of a full-bodied wine with saturated fruit. Being fat is generally considered a positive trait for wine, although being flabby is not! (Good thing wine descriptors aren’t normally used to explain weight-loss goals.)

A flabby wine is a fat wine that lacks acidity so that it seems unfocused and unstructured.

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil)

Crémant

Crémant is the term used for French sparkling wines made outside the region of Champagne using the Méthode Champenoise. (Sparkling wine labeled Champagne can only be made within the Champagne region.) Examples of crémant include Crémant d’Alsace and Crémant de Bourgogne (from the Alsace and Burgundy regions, respectively.)

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil)

Méthode Champenoise vs. Charmat

There’s still some effervescence left here in the Wine Word of the Week…

Méthode Champenoise is the method used to make Champagne and other fine sparkling wines. The wine undergoes a secondary fermentation, which creates the bubbles, in individual bottles. This method is more labor-intensive and costly than the Charmat.

The Charmat method involves placing the wine in large, pressurized tanks for its secondary fermentation. This is also known as “bulk process” since it’s a mass-production method for producing bulk quantities of sparkling wine. This method decreases lees contact and produces larger, coarser bubbles. The wine is then filtered under pressure and bottled.

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil and winespectator.com)

Spumante vs. Frizzante

Since we were on the subject of bubbly last week, let’s stay there… but let’s at least take it Italy!

I knew that both spumante and frizzante indicate “sparkling” in Italian, but wasn’t quite sure of the difference.

Spumante, literally “foaming”, is a sparkling wine; perhaps most well-known is the slightly sweet sparkling wine, Asti Spumante. (Though now it’s officially called simply Asti.)
Asti is the name of the town in the Piedmont region from which it comes and it is made primarily with the moscato grape.

Frizzante, on the other hand (or in the other glass, if you prefer) is slightly fizzy, less so than spumante. The Veneto’s prosecco, one of Italy’s most popular sparkling wines, is traditionally frizzante, although some examples can be fully spumante.

Now let’s go get a glass of it to celebrate our newfound knowledge!

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil)

Varietal vs. Variety

Although oftentimes using interchangeably, there actually is a different meaning for each word; albeit a somewhat obscure difference.

Varietal refers to a wine labeled with a single grape variety. Used predominantly in the United States and Australia, the term denotes a wine named after and made from a single grape variety. For varietal bottling, a minimum of 75 percent of that wine must be made from the designated grape variety.

A variety refers to the grape itself, whereas the term varietal refers to the wine made from that grape variety. For example, “Chardonnay is an early-ripening variety.” And, “The popular varietal is served in many restaurants.”

(winespectator.com)

Sulfur (Sulfites)

I’ve chosen this week’s word thanks to a reader who asked about the term contains sulfites on most wine bottle labels, and if it’s something we should be concerned about since it reads like a warning.

Sulfur is a natural chemical element that has been used as a wine preservative for hundreds of years. In all of its forms it is harmless to people except for the very few who are severely allergic to it. (The word “sulfites” on the label is a catchall term for sulfur in all its forms.)

The most common form of sulfur used in winemaking is sulfur dioxide. When it is added to wine it prevents oxidation and bacterial spoilage, and it inhibits the growth of yeasts.

During the last few decades, winemakers have sought to minimize the amount of sulfur dioxide they use, mostly in response to concerns voiced by wine consumers. Nonetheless, it’s pretty much impossible to produce a wine that is entirely sulfur free because a small amount of sulfur dioxide is the by-product of metabolism during fermentation.

United States law mandates that the term contains sulfites appear on all labels of wines that contain more than 10 parts per million of sulfur dioxide (most do), even when the wine has been produced without the addition of sulfur dioxide.

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil)

Alcohol by Volume

It’s a safe assumption you know what this means, but perhaps you weren’t aware that what’s printed on the label isn’t necessarily what’s in the bottle.

The percentage of the alcohol content in wine must appear on the label thanks to U.S. law. However, because alcohol content is difficult to measure precisely, and because wineries usually have to print their labels before the exact content is known, the percentage stated on the label need only be accurate within 1.5 percent. And that’s for a wine that has an alcohol content of no more than 14 percent.

If a wine has alcohol content greater than 14 percent, then the label must be accurate within 1 percent. So, far example, if a wine is labeled as having 12 percent alcohol by volume, then it may contain anywhere from 10.5 to 13.5 percent.

(The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil)