wine words

Here are some words you might need when buying a bottle or ordering wine in a French restaurant.

appellation: short for AOC or Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (‘label of inspected origin’), the inspector being the French Ministry of Agriculture. Others the EU’s Appellation d’Origine Protégée (AOP). Some appellations are vast and some are small; Bordeaux for instance has 60 different ones. Some wines are AOPs, too. For more see AOPs and some others

bouchon: cork

bouchonné: corked (as in not good)

bouteille: bottle. Each major region has its own shape, and many have their own special glasses. Burgundy bottles have rounded shoulders, Bordeauxs have straight sides, Alsace wines are tall and slim, Rhône and Loire wines have sloping shoulders and have wider bodies. Many restaurants also offer a demi bouteille, a half bottle of many wines.