164 articles
Vintage
Vintage (wine): the year grapes were harvested, printed on the label; also called millésime. Distinguished from non-vintage blends; governed by US 95%/85% rules and OIV's 85% standard.
Viognier
Viognier is an aromatic white wine grape from the northern Rhône, sole variety of the Condrieu AOC. Nearly extinct in 1965 (8 ha), it recovered to over 16,000 hectares worldwide; relative of Syrah via Mondeuse blanche.
Vitis labrusca
Vitis labrusca, the fox grape, is a North American grapevine native from southeastern Canada to the eastern USA, ancestor of Concord, Catawba, and Niagara; slipskin berries with foxy methyl anthranilate flavor and fungal disease resistance useful in breeding.
Vitis rotundifolia
Vitis rotundifolia, the muscadine grape (also Muscadinia rotundifolia, scuppernong), is a southeastern U.S. grapevine with 2n=40 chromosomes, thick-skinned bronze to purple berries, and resistance to Pierce's disease and phylloxera.
Whitaker family
Whitaker family of Marsala and Palermo: Anglo-Sicilian wine merchants (c. 1820) behind Marsala wine and Mozia excavations; today Tenuta Whitaker, a 2007 Fondazione Whitaker–Tasca d'Almerita partnership producing organic Grillo Mozia in Sicily.
White wine
White wine: wine fermented without grape-skin contact, from white grapes or pressed juice of red grapes; pale yellow to golden, styles from dry mineral to rich; oldest evidence from Tutankhamun's tomb; OIV-defined skin-contact (orange) variant.
Wine bottle
Wine bottle: the standard ~750 ml glass container for wine, developed from 14th-century glass to the 1820s cylindrical mold; sealed by cork, screw cap, or synthetic stopper; glass dominates wine packaging though LCAs favor bag-in-box and refillable formats.
Wine cooperative
Wine cooperative: a grower-owned winemaking firm (cave coopérative, cantina sociale) where members deliver grapes to a jointly owned cellar under one-member-one-vote governance; by the 1980s cooperatives made over half the wine of France, Italy, and Spain.
Wine Institute
Wine Institute is the public policy advocacy association of California wineries, founded in 1934 after Prohibition's repeal; it represents nearly 1,000 wineries at state, federal, and international levels.
Wine museum
A wine museum is an institution dedicated to collecting and displaying the material culture of vines and wine, from archaeological ceramics to vineyard tools and label archives.
Wine rating systems
Wine rating systems are numeric or symbolic scoring schemes critics and publications use to judge wine quality, with scores above 90 points driving marketing and sales.
Winemaking
Winemaking: production of wine by fermenting grape sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide, spontaneously or with selected yeasts. Covers maceration, carbonic maceration, ancestral versus traditional sparkling methods, vessels, and OIV-regulated practice.
Yarra Valley
Yarra Valley: cool-climate wine region east of Melbourne, Victoria's first wine region, planted 1838, revived 1960s. GI registered 1996; 2,837 ha; Pinot Noir and Chardonnay lead; grapes averaged $2,535/t in 2026.
Zinfandel
Zinfandel, also called Primitivo in Italy and Tribidrag or Crljenak Kastelanski in Croatia, is a red wine grape genetically identical across all three names. It is California's third most planted winegrape, first documented by name in Boston in 1832.