Wine Terms

[hotwine]

Matt, an "estate producer" is a producer who has grown the grapes from which the wine was made, as opposed to producing his wine from purchased grapes that were grown elsewhere.

"Bottled unfined" means the wine was bottled without a clarifying process. "Fining" is a process of introducing an adherent substance such as beaten egg whites to the wine, to adhere to suspended particles, which then fall to the bottom of the container for removal prior to bottling.

"Organic" merely means the wine was produced from organically-grown grapes, without the use of unnatural fertilizers or pesticides.

There is quite a quite a lexicon of wine-related terms, so I recommend you obtain a good reference. I use the Larousse Encyclopedia of Wine, Robert Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide, and Alexis Lichine's Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits. Amazon.com has the Larousse (perhaps also the latest Parker's), while the Lichine was purchased at a used book store.