07/16/08 Defining Wine Terms

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and today we will be defining a few - interesting - words that come up in wine vocabulary. Those words that people in the wine business use as if everyone knows what they are Referring to. Today I want to share the meanings of two wine terms that once perplexed me. Let's start with the word ullage, spelled u-l-l-a-g-e. It is a word that identifies the empty space between the surface of the wine and the bottom of the cork or closure of its container whether in a bottle, in a barrel or in a tank, that empty space is the ullage. The big one that took me forever to ask about because I couldn't spell it to look it up was the term terroir spelled t-e-r-r-o-i-r. It is a French word that refers in a way to the concept of the way a wines tastes due to the influenced of the environment that the grapes are grown in  not just the soil but the unique combination of the climate, the geography, the weather that year, as well as the vegetation that surrounds the vineyards. It is complex and the word to me seems to let you know that right away. If you have a wine word that is making you wonder please contact me at Linda at vine to wine dot net and most of all thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.