10 Wine Terms to Make You Sound Like a Wine Geek

If I hadn't given this blog a name that included the words "of the day," I would skip today because I really don't have the time to do it. So, I'm blessing you with a listicle that doesn't trequire a whole lot of thought on my part. It's my first listicle on this blog; that is a list of some number of terms.

Everyone wants to sound like they know what they are talking about. So here are 10 wine terms that can make you sound like a wine geek.

Fiasco -- There is a little bit of debate over this first one. Depending on whom you believe and they are not even consistent about it in Italy, a fiasco is either the roundish bottle often used in Chianti or it is the straw basket that holds the roundish bottle. Since I have heard it referring to the straw basket more often, that's my final answer.

Thief -- The thief, or wine thief, contrary to its name is not a bad thing. But, it is used for stealing just a bit of wine. Imagine that your good friend, the winemaker, wants to see how his barrel of wine is progressing. Well, he might just open the bung hole in the barrel and dip in a glass (or plastic, but food grade) piece of tubing to extract a sample. This is called a wine thief.

Veraison -- Veraison, in its original form was the beginning, or onset, of grape ripening. In its modern version, it is the beginning of color change in the grape. It's that point in time where the grape moves from growing mode to riperning mode and for some, it's a time of celebration.

Resveratrol -- Resveratrol is a phenolic compound that is produced by grapevines, particularly in red wines that typically have about 10 times the resveratrol content of white wines. This is important because resveratrol is widely considered to improve human heart health, as if you needed a reason to drink more red wine. It's not something peculiar to the grapes, however. It's largely the maceration process used in the production of red wine that causes the resveratrol content.

Ampelographer -- You know all this stuff we talk about like Cabernet Sauvignon being the love child of Sauvignon Blanc and Cebernet France. How do we know? We know because of the hard work of ampelographers who serve as the ancestry.com or 23&me of the wine variety world. Much like geneticists, these scientists, perhaps sneaking a taste of two while they are at it, study the genetic makeup of grapes so that we know their often surprising heritages.

Piccolo -- Likely coming from the musical instrument, a piccolo is the smallest commercially available wine bottle size. Measuring in at just 187.5 ml (3/16 of a liter), it is one-fourth the size of a standard bottle or just more than 6 ounces. Sometimes known as a split, it's the perfect size for a single large pour of wine.

Midas -- The largest wine bottle made in even a little bit standard production, it holds 30 liters or 40 standard bottles of wine. For those who are counting, that's 3 standard cases with 4 standard bottles left over.

Melchior -- I had to include this because we own one. A melchior is also a pretty darn big wine bottle. It holds a nice round 18 liters of wine (yes, I know, 18 is not a round number) which is the equivalent of 24 standard bottles or 2 standard cases. When I retire, if I retire, the Melchior will go from full to empty.

Muselet -- A muselet is the wire cage underneath the foil and covering the cork of most sparkling wines including Champagne. While there might be some bottles of sparkling wine where this is not the case, the traditional muselet takes exactly six half-turns to open.

Oenophile -- Derived from the Greek, and oenophile is a person who loves wine. Perhaps if you are reading this, you are an oenophile or should be.