Wine Terms Made Easy

Abboccato - Medium-sweet and full bodied Amabile - Medium-sweet Annata - Vintage Azienda (or Casa) agricola - An estate that uses its own grapes in production of its wines Azienda (or Casa) vinicola - A producer who buys in and vinifies, usually a large scale operation Azienda (or Casa) vitivinicola - An estate that grows vines, buys in grapes and makes wines Bianco - White Botte - Cask Bottiglia - Bottle Cantina Sociale - Co-operative cellar Cascina - Farmhouse (estate) Cerasuolo - Cherry red Chiaretto - Deep rose Classico - The origonal centre of a DOC region, making the most typical wines. Consorzio - Producerse trade association, whose members?wines are identified by a neck-label Dolce - Sweet Fattoria - Estate Fermentazione naturale - Natural sparkle in a wine Frizzante - Slighty sparkling Imbottigliato alleorigine - Estate bottled Invecchiato - Aged Liquoroso - Strong, often fortified, wine Maso, Masseria - Estate Metodo charmat - Tank method sparkling wine Metodo classico, metodo tradizonale - Traditional method, bottle-fermented sparkling wine Passito, Passita - A generally strong, sweet wine made from part-dried grapes Podere - A small estate Produttore - Producer Recioto - Similar to Passito, made with part-dried grapes Riserva - Reserve, for DOC wines, one that has been aged in cask and / or bottle for a particular length of time Rosato - Rose Rosso - red Secco - Dry Semisecco - Medium-dry Spumante - Sparkling wine made by any method Stravecchio - Very old, particularly of marsala and spirits Tenuta - Estate Uva - Grape Vecchio - Old; with DOC wines there are restrictions as to how this may be used. Vendemmia - Vintage Vigna, Vigneto - Vineyard Vigniaiolo, Viticoltore - Grower Vino Novello - New wine, bottled less than a year Vitigno - Grape variety Vivace - Slightly Sparkling.