Acidity:  Tartness, the taste of natural fruit acids (tartaric, citric, malic, or lactic) in wine.

 

Balance:  A wine in which acidity, sweetness, and flavor are in pleasing proportions.

 

Body:  The viscosity or thickness of wine.  Correlated with extract and alcohol:  the higher the alcohol and extract content, the more full-bodied the wine.  A tactile sensation.

 

Corked:  A moldy odor and flavor from a fungus-infected cork attributable to the presence of small amounts of tyrene in the wine.

 

Dry:  Without a sweet taste.

 

Estate Bottled:  A wine that is bottled at the same location the grapes were grown.

 

Finish:  The lingering aftertaste of a wine.

 

Free-Run:  Grape juice that runs freely from the crusher and press before force is used.

 

Green:  The high acid taste of wines made from unripe grapes. (Yet to be found in a Berryville wine.)

 

Hot:  High in alcohol, producing a slight burning sensation on the palate, generally undesirable except in fortified wines.

 

Late-Harvest:  Most often a white wine whose level of sugar at harvest is the result of Botrytis cinerea; used as a dessert wine.

 

Legs:  The drops that inch up the inside surface of a glass above the wine and slowly run back down.  Also known as "tears".

 

Maceration:  In winemaking, the extraction of aroma, color, flavor, and tannins from grape skins usually during skin contact during the alcoholic fermentation or carbonic maceration.

 

Must:  The juice and pulp produced by crushing or pressing grapes.  Used until the end of fermentation when it is called wine.

 

Off-Dry:  Very slightly sweet.

 

Oxidized:  Wine changed by contact with air, usually producing undesirable browning and sherry-like flavors.  Over-aged.

 

Punt:  The indentation in the bottom of some wine bottles.

 

Racking:  Siphoning or pumping wine from one container to another to clarify it by leaving the sediment behind.

 

Residual Sugar:  Grape sugar that remains unconverted in the wine after fermentation.

 

Smooth:  The tactile sensation for a wine's lack of astringency.

 

Still Wines:  All wines without effervescence.

 

Sweet:  The taste of a wine with perceptible sugar content; the essential characteristic of any dessert wine.

 

Table Wine:  In general, still, dry wine of 14% or less alcohol meant to accompany food.

 

Tannin:  A polyphenolic compound derived from the skins, seeds, and stems of grapes, which gives young red wine an astringent quality, but contributes to its longevity and normally ameliorates as the wine ages.  In excess, it causes a bitter taste.

 

Variety:  Sub-species of cultivated plants that are distinguished by economically important traits such as yield, disease resistance, or the distinctiveness of the flavors of their wines.

 

Vintage:  The season when wine grapes are harvested as well as the year on a wine label in which those grapes were matured for harvest.

 

 

Definitions from:  The University Wine Course by Marian W. Baldy, PH.D.