Glossary

The taste category for wines with 45 g/l residual sugar and above.

Common term for a wine with high residual sugar. These include the Prädikatsweine, or sweet wines, such as Auslese, Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese or dessert wines.

Common term usually for a simple wine, served with food.

Tannin is a naturally occurring polyphenol found in plants, seeds, bark, wood, leaves, and fruit skins that influence the taste of the wine.

Most significant with the firmness of red wines, which depend upon tannins on the palate. The tannin structure can be velvety, harmonious, ripe and lasting. If the tannins are underripe, the wine often appears sharp, bitter and astringent.

Certain, often mature red wine, will sometimes have an aroma of tar, bitumen or asphalt, or abrasion of rubber.

One of the most important components of the grape, the must and the wine.

Refers to the specific perception of the wine on the tongue, and the common term for the total impression that the wine leaves on the palate. This includes the five senses of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, as well as the temperature, surface character, density, and so on.

Aromas that originate from a new or relatively new small oak barrel. In the case of lightly toasted barrels, or large oak casks, this taste or oak or wood can be a negative description.