The Wine Lab

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] does wine age, and when should you open the bottle you’ve been saving? In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea Botezatu follows a wine from fermentation through maturity and decline. Along the way, she explains why fruity aromas fade, why red wines can feel softer with time, and how an older Riesling can end up smelling like petrol.A bottle of 1945 Romanée-Conti sold for $812,500, while a collection of prestigious Bordeaux spent decades in a New York sitting room and became undrinkable. Those two stories help explain what collectors pay for and why storage matters more to the wine than the price on the label. You’ll also hear how to spot a bottle past its best, when to decant an older wine, and why a perfectly good Tuesday might be the right time to open it.If you enjoyed the episode, rate The Wine Lab wherever you listen and share it with someone who’s curious about wine.GlossaryAnthocyanins: Grape pigments that give young red wines much of their color. They take part in reactions that change the wine’s hue as it ages.Astringency: The dry, grippy feeling a wine can leave on your gums and cheeks, partly because tannins interact with proteins in saliva.Bouquet: The combination of aromas you smell in a wine, especially those that develop as it matures.Drinking window: An estimate of when a wine is likely to be enjoyable. Your taste and the bottle’s storage history can shift that window.Esters: A family of aroma compounds. Some contribute the fresh, fruity smells that are especially noticeable in young wines and fade over time.Oxidation: Chemical changes associated with exposure to oxygen. Excessive oxidation can dull aromas and bring out notes of bruised apple or stale nuts.Provenance: A bottle’s documented history, including where it came from, who owned it, and how it was stored.Sediment: Solid material that settles out of wine. In older reds, some of it comes from pigments and tannins, and its presence alone doesn’t mean the wine has spoiled.Tannins: Compounds that come mainly from grape skins and seeds and can also come from oak. They contribute to a wine’s grip and can change in both amount and structure as it ages.TDN: An aroma compound that can give aged Riesling its distinctive petrol or kerosene note.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] does wine make perfectly intelligent people feel inadequate? And when did knowing something about wine become a way of feeling superior?Wine snobbery has been around for at least 2,000 years. Ancient Roman poets complained about hosts who kept the good wine for themselves, and modern wine culture has developed its own elaborate hierarchies of prestige, prices, scores, and tasting vocabulary.In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore the history and psychology of wine snobbery, from ancient Rome and Bordeaux's famous 1855 classification to scientific experiments that reveal how easily our expectations influence what we smell, taste, and enjoy.Can a higher price actually make wine taste better? Do expensive wines win in blind tastings? And how consistent are professional wine judges?We also look at whether wine's reputation for sophistication has made it less approachable, and why knowing more about wine should make drinking it more enjoyable, not more intimidating.A little history, a little neuroscience, and a few uncomfortable truths for those of us who work in wine.Because good taste and good manners aren't necessarily the same thing.GlossaryWine snobbery: Using wine knowledge, preferences, prices, or prestige to signal superiority or judge others.Falernian wine: A highly prized wine from ancient Roman Italy, associated with wealth and prestige.Massic wine: A prestigious ancient Roman wine from the Campanian region, mentioned by the poet Martial.Veientan wine: Wine from the area around Veii, near Rome, with a reputation for inferior quality in Roman literature.Bordeaux Classification of 1855: A ranking of leading Bordeaux wine estates based largely on their established reputations and market prices at the time.Wine Aroma Wheel: A sensory vocabulary tool developed by Ann Noble to help tasters identify and communicate wine aromas.100-point wine scale: A numerical wine-rating system popularized by Robert Parker and other critics.Blind tasting: Evaluating wine without knowing its identity, price, producer, or other information that could influence judgement.Sensory perception: The process by which the brain interprets information received through the senses, including smell, taste, and vision.Expectation effect: The influence of prior information, beliefs, or context on how a sensory experience is perceived.Medial orbitofrontal cortex: A region of the brain involved in processing reward and experienced pleasantness, including responses to wine.Sensory evaluation: The systematic assessment of a product's characteristics using human senses, often under controlled experimental conditions.Terroir: The combined environmental and human factors associated with a wine's place of origin, including climate, soil, landscape, and viticultural practices.Wine premiumization: A market trend toward higher-priced wines, often associated with perceived quality, exclusivity, or prestige.Natural wine: A loosely defined category generally associated with minimal intervention in grape growing and winemaking; no universally accepted definition exists.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] does Beaujolais Nouveau taste so different from other red wines, and what exactly is carbonic maceration?In this episode of The Wine Lab, we go inside the grape berry to explore the unusual fermentation science behind Beaujolais Nouveau. We’ll look at how intact Gamay grapes can begin producing alcohol before conventional yeast fermentation takes over, why carbonic and semi-carbonic maceration create such distinctive aromas and textures, and where those famous banana and bubblegum notes actually come from.But Beaujolais Nouveau is also a remarkable cultural story. We travel from Philip the Bold’s 1395 attempt to ban Gamay from Burgundy to Lyon’s “third river,” the Beaujolais Nouveau races of the 1970s, a Harrier jump jet full of wine, Japanese wine baths, Michel Flanzy’s accidental discovery, and Jules Chauvet’s influence on modern natural wine.Along the way, we separate carbonic maceration from whole-cluster fermentation, explore its effects on tannin and malic acid, and look at how winemakers now use the technique with Carignan, Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir and even white grapes.A young wine, an old tradition, and some very unusual grape biology.The Wine Lab with Andreea Botezatu.Stay curious, cheers.GlossaryBeaujolais Nouveau — A young, early-release wine from the Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages appellations, made primarily from Gamay and released each year on the third Thursday of November. In 2026, release day is November 19. Gamay / Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc — The principal red grape of Beaujolais. It is a natural cross between Pinot Noir and Gouais Blanc.Carbonic maceration — A winemaking method in which intact grapes are placed in a carbon dioxide-rich, oxygen-depleted environment, allowing metabolism to begin inside the berries before conventional yeast fermentation.Intracellular fermentation / intracellular metabolism — The biochemical activity occurring inside an intact grape berry under anaerobic conditions. The berry produces a small amount of ethanol and undergoes other metabolic changes before it ruptures and yeast fermentation takes over.Semi-carbonic maceration — A related method in which grapes at the bottom of a tank release juice and begin conventional fermentation. The CO₂ produced creates anaerobic conditions around intact berries higher in the tank. This is closely associated with traditional Beaujolais winemaking. DecanterWhole-cluster fermentation — Fermentation using entire grape bunches, stems included. Some intracellular fermentation may occur, but whole-cluster fermentation and carbonic maceration are not synonymous.Isoamyl acetate — An ester strongly associated with banana-like aromas and one of the compounds linked with the distinctive aroma profile of some young Beaujolais wines.Ester — A family of volatile aroma compounds responsible for many fruity and floral notes in wine.Malic acid — One of the principal organic acids in grapes. A portion can be metabolized inside intact berries during carbonic maceration.Beaujolais Villages — An appellation covering selected villages and vineyards in Beaujolais, generally producing wines with more concentration and structure than basic Beaujolais.Cru Beaujolais — The ten named appellations at the top of the Beaujolais hierarchy: Brouilly, Côte de Brouilly, Chénas, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Juliénas, Morgon, Moulin-à-Vent, Régnié and Saint-Amour.Morgon — A Beaujolais cru known for greater structure, depth and aging potential.Fleurie — A Beaujolais cru often associated with aromatic, floral and elegant expressions of Gamay.Moulin-à-Vent — One of the most structured and ageworthy Beaujolais crus.Michel Flanzy — French scientist whose research beginning in the 1930s helped establish the modern understanding and application of carbonic maceration.Jules Chauvet — Beaujolais négociant, winemaker and chemist whose work on fermentation, tasting and low-intervention winemaking influenced later producers associated with the natural-wine movement.Les Sarmentelles — The annual Beaujolais Nouveau celebration in Beaujeu, held around the official November release.Beaujeu — Historic capital of Beaujolais and the town from which the region takes its name.Bouchon — A traditional Lyonnais restaurant associated with the food and wine culture of Lyon.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] Stalin drank the semi-sweet Georgian red Khvanchkara. Fidel Castro developed an unexpected enthusiasm for Chablis. Nicolae Ceaușescu’s preference for the obscure Romanian wine Zghihară de Huși reportedly helped determine what the communist state planted. Josip Broz Tito produced his own presidential wines. Mobutu Sese Seko accumulated an extraordinary wine cellar and sought out bottles from his birth year. And Kim Jong-il’s taste for luxury included imported Bordeaux and Burgundy.In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore the wines associated with six authoritarian leaders, and what their drinking habits reveal about wine, history, culture, wealth and political power.Along the way, we explore Georgian wine and Khvanchkara, Chablis and Chardonnay, Romanian indigenous grape varieties, Bordeaux and Burgundy, vintage Port, wine aging and the fascinating relationship between wine and politics.We also separate documented history from some of the myths surrounding famous dictators and their supposed favorite wines.Because appreciating great wine doesn’t necessarily make someone refined  and it most certainly doesn’t make them good.Wine can tell us about taste, geography, nostalgia, wealth and power.Character is another matter entirely.Stay curious, cheers!Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] is far too large and diverse to have a single wine climate, grape or style. In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea travels through the state’s major wine-growing regions, from the High Plains and Hill Country to North, West and Gulf Coast Texas, to look at what makes winegrowing here so distinctive. We explore Tempranillo and Tannat, the surprising promise of Picpoul Blanc, the versatility of Blanc du Bois, increasingly impressive sparkling wines, and why blends may ultimately make more sense than searching for a single signature grape. There’s also phylloxera, Thomas Volney Munson, the pioneers of the modern industry, international competition success, and more than 600 wineries, most of which Andreea apologizes in advance for failing to mention by name. GlossaryAmerican Viticultural Area (AVA) — A legally defined wine-grape-growing region in the United States distinguished by geographic features that can affect viticulture.Texas High Plains — A high-elevation, relatively dry grape-growing region in northwest Texas that produces a large proportion of the state’s wine grapes.Texas Hill Country — A large AVA and major wine-tourism region in central Texas, home to many wineries and tasting rooms.Vitis vinifera — The European grapevine species that includes most familiar wine grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.Pierce’s disease — A bacterial grapevine disease transmitted by insects such as sharpshooters. It strongly influences which grape varieties can be grown successfully in warmer, more humid parts of Texas.Blanc du Bois — A Pierce’s disease-resistant hybrid white grape grown extensively in the southern United States. It can be used for dry, sweet, sparkling and fortified wines.Black Spanish / Lenoir — A dark-skinned, Pierce’s disease-tolerant grape with a long history in Texas and other parts of the southern United States.Tannat — A deeply colored, tannic red grape originally associated with southwestern France and now particularly famous in Uruguay. It has also shown considerable promise under Texas growing conditions.Picpoul Blanc — A Mediterranean white grape known for retaining lively acidity. Its name is commonly interpreted as “lip stinger.”Diurnal temperature variation — The difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures. High-elevation vineyard regions can have hot days followed by substantially cooler nights.Phenolic ripeness — The development of compounds in grape skins and seeds that influence wine color, tannin, bitterness, aroma and mouthfeel. It doesn’t always progress at the same rate as sugar accumulation.Traditional-method sparkling wine — Sparkling wine produced through a second fermentation in the bottle, followed by aging on the yeast lees, riddling and disgorgement.Blending — Combining wines made from different grapes, vineyard sites, lots or sometimes vintages to create the desired balance of acidity, aroma, color, tannin, structure and flavor.Phylloxera — A tiny grapevine pest that devastated European vineyards during the nineteenth century. Grafting Vitis vinifera onto resistant American rootstocks provided the long-term solution.Thomas Volney Munson — Texas viticulturist and grape breeder whose extensive work with native American grape species contributed to the selection of rootstocks used to combat the European phylloxera crisis.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] thousands of years, winemakers have been trying to solve the same problems: wines that were too acidic, cloudy, unstable, oxidized, or simply didn't taste very good. The solutions, however, could get interesting.Ancient wines were treated with seawater, pine resin, herbs, honey, cedar oil, powdered marble, gypsum, ashes and, in some cases, dangerously, lead. Later winemakers clarified wine with egg whites, fish swim bladders, milk proteins and even bullock's blood.In this episode of The Wine Lab, we travel through roughly 8,000 years of people trying to “fix” wine. Along the way, we look at what these strange additions were supposed to accomplish, the chemistry that sometimes made them surprisingly effective, and the practices that survived into modern winemaking.From ancient aromatized wines to modern vermouth and from powdered marble to today's calcium carbonate, some historical ideas are much less bizarre than they first appear.Others involve bullock's blood.Those are harder to defend.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] Jefferson knew his Bordeaux, traveled through European wine regions taking meticulous notes, ordered Château Lafite directly from the source, and spent years trying - mostly unsuccessfully - to grow European grapes at Monticello. In this episode of The Wine Lab, we follow Jefferson from the vineyards of France and Italy to his own stubbornly uncooperative vines in Virginia. Along the way, we explore his surprisingly modern ideas about wine provenance, his legendary presidential cellar, wine as a tool of diplomacy, and why calling him the “father of American wine” may be giving him a little too much credit.GlossaryChâteau Lafite — The Bordeaux estate now known as Château Lafite Rothschild, one of the most famous wine properties in the world. Jefferson visited Bordeaux and later ordered its wine directly from the estate.Provenance — The documented origin and history of a wine, including where it was produced, bottled, stored and handled. Provenance is especially important for valuable and collectible wines.Estate bottling — Wine bottled by the producer associated with the vineyard or estate rather than being transported in bulk and bottled later by a merchant or other intermediary.Cask — A wooden vessel used for storing or transporting wine. Historically, large quantities of wine were shipped in casks rather than individual bottles.Nebbiolo — A red grape variety from northwestern Italy, best known today for Barolo and Barbaresco. Jefferson encountered Nebbiolo in Piedmont and was particularly impressed by it.Madeira — A fortified wine produced on the Portuguese island of Madeira. Jefferson used Madeira as one of his sensory reference points when describing Nebbiolo.Champagne — Sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France. Jefferson was an enthusiastic buyer of Champagne, although eighteenth-century Champagne styles were not necessarily identical to those we know today.Chambertin — A prestigious Burgundy vineyard associated with Pinot Noir. Jefferson purchased Chambertin among other important French wines.Sauternes — A Bordeaux wine region famous for sweet white wines, traditionally produced from grapes affected by noble rot.Hermitage — A historic wine appellation in France’s northern Rhône Valley, particularly famous for Syrah.Tokay — An older English spelling associated with Tokaji, the celebrated wines of Hungary. Tokaji wines appeared at Jefferson’s presidential dinners.Vitis vinifera — The European grapevine species responsible for most of the world's classic wine grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling and Nebbiolo.Phylloxera — A tiny insect native to North America that attacks grapevine roots. European Vitis vinifera is particularly susceptible to it.Black rot — A fungal grapevine disease native to North America that became one of the major challenges facing early attempts to establish European grape varieties in the eastern United States.Philip Mazzei — An Italian physician, merchant and agriculturalist who settled near Monticello in 1773 and worked with Jefferson on early attempts to establish European grapevines and wine production in Virginia.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] does “dry” wine actually mean? How much sugar can a dry wine contain? And why can two wines with the same residual sugar taste very different?In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea explores the science and sensory side of sweetness in wine. We look at residual sugar, acidity, aroma, temperature, and balance; how winemakers create sweet and off-dry styles; and why Riesling, Champagne, Sauternes, Port, icewine, and other wines can make the language of sweetness surprisingly complicated.We’ll also decode confusing terms like Brut, Extra Dry, Demi-Sec, trocken, Spätlese, and Auslese, and explain why sweetness is a wine style rather than a measure of quality.GlossaryResidual sugar (RS) — Sugar remaining in wine after fermentation, usually expressed in grams per liter.Dry wine — A wine containing very little residual sugar. Under OIV definitions, wines may qualify as dry at up to 4 g/L sugar, or up to 9 g/L when sufficiently balanced by acidity.Off-dry — A wine with a small but noticeable amount of sweetness. Exact definitions vary between regions and regulatory systems.Glucose and fructose — The principal fermentable sugars naturally present in grapes.Acidity — One of the major structural components of wine. Higher acidity can reduce the perceived intensity of sweetness.Perceived sweetness — How sweet a wine tastes, which may differ from its measured sugar concentration because of acidity, aroma, temperature, texture, and other factors.Süssreserve — Sterile grape must traditionally used in some German wines to adjust sweetness after fermentation.Noble rot — Beneficial infection of grapes by Botrytis cinerea under suitable conditions, causing water loss and concentrating sugars, acids, and flavor compounds.Late harvest — Wines made from grapes harvested later than usual, often with higher sugar concentration.Icewine / Eiswein — Wine traditionally made from grapes that freeze naturally on the vine and are pressed while frozen, producing highly concentrated juice.Fortified wine — Wine to which grape spirit has been added. Depending on when fortification occurs, the resulting wine may be dry or sweet.Brut Nature — A very dry sparkling-wine category, generally containing less sugar than Extra Brut or Brut.Brut — A widely used dry sparkling-wine category.Extra Dry — A sparkling-wine sweetness category that is, confusingly, sweeter than Brut.Demi-Sec — A noticeably sweet sparkling-wine category.Doux — One of the sweetest sparkling-wine categories.Trocken — German term meaning dry.Halbtrocken — German term indicating a wine with somewhat more residual sugar than trocken.Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese — German Prädikat categories related primarily to grape ripeness or must weight at harvest, not necessarily to the sweetness of the finished wine.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] or screw cap? For many wine drinkers, the answer feels surprisingly personal.In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore the history, culture, science, and occasional drama of wine closures. We’ll look at how natural cork became part of the ritual of wine, why screw caps gained a serious following in Australia and New Zealand, how sparkling-wine corks get their familiar mushroom shape, and why the humble crown cap deserves more respect than it usually receives.We’ll also talk about cork taint, oxygen, aging, synthetic and glass closures, sabrage, restaurant theatre, and the question that refuses to disappear: can a wine under screw cap age as well as one under cork?The answer, as usual with wine, is more interesting than a simple yes or no.GlossaryAgglomerated cork: A closure material made by binding small pieces or granules of cork together. It is commonly used in technical closures and in the bodies of traditional sparkling-wine corks.Cork oak: Quercus suber, the Mediterranean tree whose bark is harvested to produce natural cork. The tree is not cut down during harvesting.Cork taint: A wine fault most commonly associated with TCA. It may create musty aromas or simply suppress the wine’s fruit and make it seem muted.Crown cap: A crimped metal closure patented by William Painter in 1892. It is used for beer, some pétillant naturel wines, and bottles undergoing traditional-method sparkling-wine production.Disgorging: The sparkling-wine production step in which sediment from the second fermentation is removed from the bottle.Glass closure: A reusable stopper, usually fitted with a flexible sealing ring and used with a specially designed bottle neck.Lees: Deposits of dead yeast cells and other particles that settle after fermentation. Traditional-method sparkling wines may spend months or years aging on their lees.Muselet: The wire cage that holds a sparkling-wine cork securely in the bottle.Natural cork: A stopper cut from cork oak bark. It is elastic, renewable, and traditionally associated with wines intended for aging.Oxygen transmission: The movement of oxygen through or around a closure over time. The amount varies according to closure type and design.Pétillant naturel: A lightly sparkling wine usually bottled before its first fermentation is complete. It is often called pét-nat and may be sold under crown cap.Reduction: A group of wine aromas associated with certain sulfur compounds, sometimes described as struck flint, rubber, onion, cabbage, or rotten egg.Sabrage: The ceremonial opening of a sparkling-wine bottle by striking the lip with a saber or similar blade so that the top of the neck breaks away.Screw-cap liner: The material inside a screw cap that creates the actual seal. Different liners can allow different amounts of oxygen transmission.Synthetic closure: A manufactured stopper designed to resemble cork and provide predictable sealing and oxygen-transmission performance.TCA: 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, the compound most famously associated with cork taint.Technical cork: A cork-based closure manufactured from processed cork material rather than cut as one continuous piece of bark.Traditional method: A sparkling-wine process in which the second fermentation occurs inside the bottle.GSupport the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel

Send me your thoughts at [email protected] is Pinot named after a pine cone? What makes Tempranillo “the little early one”? Why does Saperavi mean “the dyeing grape,” and who decided to call Xinomavro “sour black”?In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea Botezatu explores the fascinating origins of grape names across France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Romania, Greece, Georgia, Croatia, and beyond.Some names describe color, aroma, cluster shape, or ripening time. Others preserve villages, saints, old dialects, cultural traditions, and mistakes that survived for centuries. Modern DNA analysis has added another layer to the story, revealing that Cabernet Sauvignon is the offspring of Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc, Syrah has French rather than Persian parentage, and Zinfandel, Primitivo, and Croatia’s Tribidrag are genetically the same grape.Along the way, we meet the Black Maiden and the Black Old Woman of Romania, the fog-covered Nebbiolo of Piedmont, the aromatic Traminer of South Tyrol, and Georgian varieties whose names record precisely what growers saw in the vineyard.Every grape has two histories: one written in its DNA and another written in its name. Pour a glass and discover the stories hidden on the label.GlossaryAmpelographyThe identification and classification of grape varieties through characteristics such as leaves, shoots, clusters, berries, and growing tips.CultivarA cultivated plant variety selected and maintained because it possesses particular characteristics.CloneA vine propagated vegetatively from another vine and therefore sharing its basic genetic identity, although mutations may accumulate over time.Vegetative propagationThe reproduction of grapevines using cuttings, buds, or grafts rather than seeds.MutationA genetic change that may create a new characteristic within a variety, such as a different berry color or growth habit.SynonymA different name used for the same grape variety. Zinfandel, Primitivo, and Tribidrag are examples of names associated with the same genetic variety.HomonymThe same name applied to two or more genetically different grape varieties.TeinturierA grape with pigment in both its skins and its flesh. Most red grapes have pigmented skins but pale flesh. Saperavi is a well-known teinturier variety.AnthocyaninsPigments responsible for many of the red, purple, and blue colors found in grape skins and red wine.MonoterpenesAromatic compounds associated with floral, citrus, rose, and musky aromas in varieties such as Muscat and Gewürztraminer.DNA fingerprintingThe comparison of genetic markers to identify grape varieties and determine relationships such as parentage.Parentage analysisThe use of genetic evidence to identify the varieties that produced another grape through natural or deliberate crossing.Natural crossingThe creation of a new grapevine from a seed produced when one variety pollinates another. Cabernet Sauvignon arose from a natural cross between Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc.Berry bloomThe natural waxy coating on the surface of grapes. One proposed explanation for the name Nebbiolo connects this misty coating with the Italian word nebbia, meaning fog.PinotA name generally connected to the French word for pine, referring to the grape’s compact, pine-cone-shaped clusters.TempranilloA Spanish name derived from temprano, meaning early, referring to the variety’s relatively early ripening.PrimitivoAn Italian name connected to the idea of ripening first or early. It does not mean primitive in the modern English sense.FeteascăA Romanian term derived from fată, meaning girl or maiden. It appears in names such as Fetească Albă, Fetească Neagră, and Fetească Regală.SaperaviA Georgian name associated with dyeing, coloring, or staining, describing the grape’s deeply pigmented juice and flesh.RkatsiteliA Georgian name commonly translated as “red stem,” referring to reddish coloration in parts of the vine.MtsvaneA Georgian word meaning green.XinomavroA Greek compound formed from words meaning sour or acidic and black.AgiorgitikoA Greek name associated with Saint George and historically connected with the Nemea region.GewürztraminerA name commonly understood as aromatic or spiced Traminer. Traminer is traditionally associated with Tramin, or Termeno, in South Tyrol.SpätburgunderThe traditional German name for Pinot Noir, combining words associated with late and Burgundian.NebbioloAn Italian grape name commonly connected with nebbia, meaning fog, although the precise reason for the name remains debated.SangioveseA name traditionally interpreted as “the blood of Jupiter,” from sanguis Jovis, although this explanation is not historically proven.TribidragAn old Croatian name for the variety also known as Crljenak Kaštelanski, Primitivo, and Zinfandel.Support the showFor more detailed wine science checkout my YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@Enology_channel