- Varietal
- A varietal wine is one that is
named after the grape variety from which it is
made.
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- Vat
- Large vessel or tank for
fermenting or blending wines. Nowadays vats may be made
of wood, concrete or stainless steel, sometimes with a
glass lining.
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- VDQS (Vin
Délimité de Qualité
Supérieur)
- The second official category of
French wines, subject to slightly less rigorous
regulations than those applying to Appellation
Contôlée wines. The category was set up in
1949 and has since become firmly established.
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- Vendange
- The French word for
vintage.
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- Vendemmia
- The Italian word for
vintage.
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- Vignoble
- French for vineyard.
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- Vin de
garde
- A wine whose potential to mature
makes it worth keeping.
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- Vin de
l'année
- Literally 'wine of the year', that
is to say of the current vintage.
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- Vin de la
région
- What you ask for when you want a
wine made in the region where you happen to
be.
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- Vin de
liqueur
- This is the French name for what
in Britain would be called 'fortified wine', a term which
in France would imply an improper addition of
alcohol.
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- Vin de
pays
- Not to be confused with 'vin de la
région', this is the third official category of
French wines, established in 1976. There are over 150
districts, some large (vine de pays de zone), some
covering départements (vin de pays
départementale), some (the most interesting),
small districts,
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- Vin Doux Naturel
(VDN)
- A description used for a type of
wine made in southern France. These wines are high in
natural sugar content and are fortified by the addition
of extra alcohol, making them about as strong as an
average sherry. Drink them as dessert wines, after meals
or on their own, like sherry.
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- Vin
jaune
- These are white wines with a
yellowish hue caused by bacterial action during the long
fermentation process. They have a strong and distinctive
flavor and bouquet and are made solely in the Jura region
of France.
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- Vin
nouveau
- New wine, made to be drunk just
after the vintage. Beaujolais is the most famous, but
many other French regions now market a
'nouveau'.
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- Vin
ordinaire
- Not an official category of French
wine but a loose term for basic wine, bout often by the
alcoholic degree per liter and regarded as a grocery
commodity, not a subject for connoisseurship.
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- Viña
- Spanish for Vineyard.
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- Vinho
generoso
- Spanish term for aperitif and
dessert wines such as sherry.
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- Vinho
verde
- A light, tangy wine made in
northern Portugal. The name, meaning 'green wine', refers
to its newness, not its color. It comes in both red and
white, but the term is mainly associated with the white
wine.
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- Vintage
- The annual harvesting and
production of a wine. More particularly, a vintage wine
is one that bears the date of the vintage on the label,
wither because it is meant to be drunk young or because
was made to be matured over a number of
years.
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- Viticulture
- The science and art of growing
grapes.
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- VQPRD
- Vin de Qualité Produit dans
Une Région Determinée (quality wine
produced in a defined zone). This is an EEC quality
category. Italian DOC, French AOC
and German QbA
wines all qualify. In the eyes of Brussels all else is
'table wine'.
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