Wine · Explainer
Questions about wine
This page contains the answers to the questions most often asked about wine. Every answer is written by the wine & spirits shop in Bathmen, backed up by its own stock and provided with sources.
All the answers at a glance
All questions
- What is the difference between champagne, cava and prosecco?Champagne comes from the Champagne region in France, cava from Spain and prosecco from northern Italy. Champagne and cava get their bubbles through…
- What does dry wine mean?Dry wine is wine with little residual sugar. Under European rules a wine may be called dry at no more than 4 grams of sugar per…
- What is the difference between old world and new world wine?Old world stands for the European wine countries, new world for among others the United States, Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. It…
- What do AOC, DOC and DOCG mean on a wine label?AOC, DOC and DOCG are national names for the same European framework: the protected designation of origin. With a protected designation of origin, all grapes must come from…
- How long does a bottle of wine keep after you have opened it?An opened bottle of wine usually stays good for three to five days, if you close it properly and store it cool. Sparkling wine…
- What are sulphites in wine?Sulphites are sulphur compounds that protect wine against oxidation and unwanted micro-organisms. Some of them form naturally during fermentation. The European limit…
- What is organic wine and what is biodynamic wine?Organic wine falls under European legislation: Regulation (EU) 2018/848 governs cultivation, the substances permitted in the cellar and lower sulphite limits, and…
- What is tannin in wine?Tannin is a group of natural substances from the skin, seeds and stems of the grape and from oak. Tannin binds…
- Which bottle sizes exist for wine?For still wine, eight bottle sizes are permitted in the European Union: 100, 187, 250, 375, 500, 750, 1000 and 1500 millilitres. The…
- At what temperature do you serve wine?Red wine is served at 12 to 18 degrees, full-bodied white wine at 10 to 13 degrees and champagne at 8 to…
- How is rosé made?You make rosé from blue grapes whose juice has brief contact with the skins. Three methods are common: direct pressing, a…
- What is orange wine?Orange wine is white wine that ferments on the skins just like red wine. The skin contact lasts from a few days to months,…
- How many glasses are in a bottle?A standard bottle of wine of 75 centilitres yields 7 glasses of 100 millilitres, with half a glass left over; if you pour 125 millilitres, then…
- What is terroir?Terroir is the interplay of soil, climate, landscape and human knowledge in a defined wine region, which gives the wine from that region a recognisable…
- Which glass do you use for what?For tasting and judging wine, the ISO tasting glass is the standard: ISO 3591 from 1977 prescribes an egg-shaped bowl, measured…
- What is decanting?Decanting is pouring wine from the bottle into a decanter, with two different purposes: leaving the sediment behind in the bottle,…
- Why does wine have a cork?Cork seals a wine bottle because the bark of the cork oak remains compressible and resilient: about 90 percent of the volume is…
- What is cork taint?Cork taint is the musty smell of damp cardboard in wine, almost always caused by 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, abbreviated TCA. The substance is already at…
- What do brut and demi-sec mean?Brut and demi-sec are legal sugar classes for sparkling wine. Brut means less than 12 grams of sugar per litre, demi-sec 32 to 50…
- What is méthode traditionnelle?Méthode traditionnelle means that the second alcoholic fermentation takes place in the bottle itself and the wine stays at least nine months without interruption on the…
- What is the tank method for sparkling wine?In the tank method the second fermentation takes place in a closed pressure tank, not in the bottle. The European rules require for quality sparkling…
- What is malolactic fermentation?Malolactic fermentation is the conversion of malic acid into lactic acid and carbon dioxide by lactic acid bacteria, almost always Oenococcus oeni. For every gram of malic acid that disappears,…
- What is a cuvée?Cuvée has two meanings. In Champagne the cuvée is the first pressing fraction: from a marc of 4,000 kilos of grapes, 2,550…
- How do you best store wine at home?Store wine between 15 and 20 degrees, dark, dry and without large temperature swings. Above 25 degrees the quality deteriorates, and above…
- Which wine goes with cheese?White wine goes with more types of cheese than red. In a 2018 study in the journal Beverages, bitterness and acidity in…
- What makes up the price of a bottle of wine?Of every bottle of wine above 8.5 percent alcohol, 95.69 euro per hectolitre goes to excise duty, which is 0.72 euro per bottle of…
- How do you make mulled wine?Slowly heat red wine with sugar and spices to about 70 degrees Celsius and keep it there. Never let mulled wine boil: ethanol…
- Which wine goes with gourmet, fondue and raclette?With cheese fondue and raclette, a dry white wine with firm acidity goes well, such as chasselas, riesling or sauvignon blanc: Gruyère AOP contains 49…
- How do you open a bottle of sparkling wine safely?Chill the bottle to 8 to 10 degrees Celsius, remove the foil, loosen the cage in six half turns and…
- How many calories are in a glass of wine?A standard glass of wine of 100 millilitres with 12.5% alcohol contains about 10 grams of alcohol. Alcohol provides 7 kilocalories per gram, so that comes to…
- What is the difference between chardonnay and sauvignon blanc?Chardonnay and sauvignon blanc are both white grape varieties from France. In 2015 chardonnay covered about 210,000 hectares worldwide, sauvignon blanc at…
- What is the difference between red and white wine?The difference lies in the skins, not only in the grape. With red wine, the juice sits for days to weeks on the…
- What must appear on a wine label?A wine label must show the wine category, the alcohol content, the net contents, the origin, the bottler, the lot number and the allergens. Sulphite…
- How do you know whether a wine is spoiled?A spoiled wine gives itself away by its smell. Cork taint smells of damp cardboard and, at about 1.4 nanograms of TCA per litre…
- How much alcohol is in a bottle of wine?In the European Union, wine must contain at least 8.5% vol alcohol and, without enrichment, may not exceed 15% vol in total; for…
- What do reserva and gran reserva mean on a wine bottle?Reserva and gran reserva are protected designations for maturation, with periods that are set out per region of origin in its own pliego de condiciones. In…
- What is the difference between merlot and cabernet sauvignon?Merlot and cabernet sauvignon are two black grapes that both have cabernet franc as a parent. Merlot is ripe 2.5 weeks after chasselas…
- How do you taste wine?Wine tasting takes five steps: look, swirl, smell, taste and judge. Pour about 5 cl into a glass that tapers towards the top…
- What is the difference between bordeaux and burgundy?Red bordeaux may come from six varieties: cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, cot, carménère and petit verdot. Red burgundy has pinot noir…
- What does the vintage on a wine bottle mean?The vintage on a wine bottle is the year in which the grapes were picked, not the year of bottling or sale. The European…
- What is beaujolais primeur and when does it come out?Beaujolais primeur, also called beaujolais nouveau, is the young red wine from that same year's harvest. Every year it comes out on…
- When are grapes harvested for wine?Grapes ripen at the end of summer, so the harvest follows the season of the hemisphere. In the Northern Hemisphere, the harvest is…
- What does climate change do to wine?Climate change can be measured in wine. In the Languedoc, the alcohol content rose from 11 to 14 percent between 1984 and 2018,…
- What do cru, premier cru and grand cru mean?Cru on a French label stands for a delimited origin, but the meaning differs per region. In Burgundy a cru is…
- What is the difference between amarone and ripasso?Amarone della Valpolicella is made from grapes that dry for months after picking; pressing may not take place before 1 December. Valpolicella Ripasso is…
- How do you open a bottle of wine without a corkscrew?Of all the tricks, 2 work reliably. Slowly push the cork into the bottle with a blunt object and then pour through…
- What is dessert wine?Dessert wine is wine with so much residual sugar that you drink it with or as dessert. That sweetness arises in five ways: late harvest,…
- What is crémant?Crémant is a protected designation for white or rosé quality sparkling wine with a protected designation of origin. The grapes are picked by hand, from…
- Which wine goes with game?With game, you choose the wine according to the fat and the protein in the meat, not the colour of the sauce.…
- How do you cool wine quickly?Put the bottle in a bucket half filled with water and ice. The Comité Champagne reckons on 20…
- How long can you keep champagne and sparkling wine?Non-vintage champagne must mature at least fifteen months before sale, a millésime thirty-six months. Cava has nine months for Guarda and thirty…
- How do you organise a wine tasting at home?Count on six to eight wines and about 5 centilitres per person per wine; a 0.75 litre bottle then yields…
- How do you put together a wine gift package yourself?Choose three to six bottles that complement each other: a sparkling, a white, a red and possibly a sweet one. Keep them in the same…
- How many grapes are in a bottle of wine?A 0.75 litre bottle needs about 1.2 kilos of grapes. In Champagne that ratio is fixed by law: 102 litres…
- How much pressure is there in a bottle of champagne?In a full bottle of champagne there is about 6 bar of overpressure, measured after the second fermentation in a bottle of 0.75 litre. European…
- How much sugar is in wine?A dry wine contains at most 4 grams of residual sugar per litre, medium-dry up to 12 grams, medium-sweet up to 45 grams and sweet 45 grams…
- How much wine may you bring in from abroad?From another EU country you may bring 90 litres of wine for own use, of which at most 60 litres sparkling wine. In addition 110…
- Is wine gluten-free?Wine is made from grapes and contains no grain, so wine is gluten-free in principle. The European limit for the designation…
- Which wine do you use for cooking?Use a dry wine that you would also pour into a glass, because reducing intensifies everything in it. According to the…
- What is the difference between a domaine and a négociant?A domaine makes and bottles wine from grapes from its own vineyards. A négociant buys grapes, must or young wine from…
- Is wine with a screw cap worse than wine with a cork?No. The closure says nothing about the quality of the wine. According to the Australian Wine Research Institute, a screw cap with a tin-saran liner…
- What is the difference between syrah and shiraz?Syrah and shiraz are the same grape variety. In the Vitis International Variety Catalogue, syrah is listed as the main name with 102 synonyms, including shiraz. It…
- Why does a wine bottle have a hollow bottom?The hollow bottom of a wine bottle is called the punt. It arises when the glass is formed, makes the base sturdier and…
- Why is there sediment in my wine?Sediment in wine comes in two main forms. Crystals of potassium bitartrate are regular in shape and measure about 0.1 to 1.0 millimeters;…
- What do classico and superiore mean on an Italian wine?Classico stands for the oldest, historically delimited part of an Italian wine region. Superiore stands for stricter requirements within the same appellation, often a…
- What do Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese mean on a German wine?Kabinett, Spätlese and Auslese are three of the six German Prädikate. The Prädikat follows from the must weight of the grapes at the…
- What does body mean in wine?Body is the word for how heavy or full a wine feels in the mouth. Alcohol and residual sugar weigh most heavily in it.…
- What does the QR code on a wine bottle mean?Behind the QR code on a wine bottle you find the ingredient list and the nutrition declaration. Since 8 December 2023, producers may provide those two items digitally…
- What do IGP and Vin de France mean on a French wine?IGP stands for protected geographical indication. For an IGP wine, at least 85 percent of the grapes come from the area stated on the…
- What does vieilles vignes mean on a wine bottle?Vieilles vignes means old vines. The term is not tied to a legal minimum age, so the producer decides for themselves when to put it on…
- What does an oak cask do to wine?An oak cask releases substances into the wine and slowly lets in some oxygen. The wood yields, among other things, vanillin,…
- Is bag-in-box wine as good as wine from a bottle?Bag-in-box and bottle differ mainly in oxygen. The bag shrinks as you dispense, so no air reaches the wine…
- What is biodynamic wine?Biodynamic wine comes from a vineyard that works organically and on top of that uses biodynamic preparations. The approach goes back to an agricultural course from…
- What do blanc de blancs and blanc de noirs mean?Blanc de blancs is white sparkling wine made exclusively from white grapes; blanc de noirs is white sparkling wine made exclusively from black grapes.…
- What is noble rot in wine?Noble rot is a slow infection of ripe grapes by the fungus Botrytis cinerea, in damp nights and dry days. The skin…
- What is Franciacorta?Franciacorta is Italian sparkling wine from Lombardy that must undergo its second fermentation in the bottle, just like champagne. The disciplinare prescribes chardonnay and pinot…
- What is ice wine?Ice wine is wine made from grapes that stay hanging frozen on the vine and are also pressed frozen. In Germany they must be at…
- What is natural wine?Natural wine is not a legal category in European wine legislation. In France, however, since 2019 there is the designation Vin Méthode Nature: organically certified…
- Is wine made in the Netherlands?Yes. The Netherlands has 9 protected designations of origin for wine, including Maasvallei Limburg, Mergelland, Achterhoek Winterswijk and Twente. In addition, for each of…
- What is pet-nat?Pet-nat is the nickname for pétillant naturel and is not itself a legal designation. The method is called méthode ancestrale: halfway through the…
- Are primitivo and zinfandel the same grape?Primitivo and zinfandel are the same wine grape variety. DNA research by the University of California, Davis and the University of Zagreb linked both names in…
- What is Sekt?Sekt is the German name for sparkling wine. Sparkling wine holds at least 3 bar of overpressure in the closed bottle; German Sekt is considered…
- When is wine vegan?Wine is vegan if no animal-derived processing aids have been used in the cellar. It is mainly about fining: the OIV allows…
- What does acidity or freshness mean in wine?Acidity is the proportion of acids in wine and determines how fresh a glass comes across. The most important are tartaric acid, malic acid and lactic acid. It…
- What do the legs or tears in a wine glass say?Legs or tears in a wine glass arise because alcohol evaporates faster than water. In the thin film of wine against the wall, the surface tension changes…
- Which grape varieties do you need to know?Worldwide there are around 10,000 known grape varieties, but thirteen of them cover more than a third of the vineyard area and thirty-three varieties together…
- What are those crystals on the cork or on the bottom of the bottle?Those crystals are called tartrates. It is potassium hydrogen tartrate, a natural salt of tartaric acid and potassium from the grape. The Australian Wine Research Institute…
- Which wine goes with chocolate?Choose a wine that is sweeter than the chocolate. According to the Warenwetbesluit Cacao en chocolade, chocolate contains at least 35 percent dry cocoa solids,…
- Which wine goes with Christmas dinner?Work course by course. Sparkling as an aperitif, white with the fish or the starter, red with the main course and a sweet wine with…
- Which wine goes with fish?With fish, usually choose a dry white wine with fresh acidity. Muscadet from the western Loire, from the melon B grape, and…
- Which wines can you keep and which should you drink young?By far most wine is made to be drunk young. Keeping only pays off with wines with a lot of tannin, a lot of acidity, a lot of…
- Is chardonnay sweet or dry?Chardonnay is almost always vinified dry. The grape itself is neither sweet nor dry; the winemaker decides how much residual sugar remains. Legally…
- Is riesling sweet or dry?Riesling is not sweet or dry; the winemaker decides that. If he lets fermentation run its course, the wine becomes dry. If he stops…
- Is sauvignon blanc sweet or dry?Sauvignon blanc is almost always vinified dry. A still wine may be called dry at a maximum of 4 grams of residual sugar per litre, and up to…
- How long does an unopened bottle of wine keep?Under the European labelling rules, an unopened bottle of wine with 10 percent alcohol by volume or more does not need to carry a best-before date. An ordinary white…
- How is wine made?Wine is made in eight steps: harvesting, crushing or pressing, alcoholic fermentation, possibly malolactic fermentation, maturation, sulphiting, filtering and bottling. Yeasts convert…
- Which wine goes with boeuf bourguignon?A red Burgundy made from pinot noir goes with boeuf bourguignon, the wine from the same region as the dish. The fresh acidity and…
- Is Pinot Grigio sweet or dry?Pinot Grigio is generally dry. Dry is a measurable quantity: up to 4 grams of residual sugar per litre, and up to 9 grams…
- Which white wine is sweet?A white wine is only called sweet from 45 grams of residual sugar per litre. Below that comes medium-sweet, from just over 12 to 45 grams, and…
Further
Further
Verkoop van alcohol onder de 18 jaar is verboden. NIX18.