Wine Terms Starting with R

Racy wines offer higher levels of acidity. Similar to nervous or nervy.

An abbreviated form of Qualitätswein mit Prädikat, which translates loosely as "quality wine with distinction" and denotes the highest quality of German wines.

Italian term for a stem of a bunch of grapes

Ratings are numbers given to wines to show how a taster ranks them against other wines in a similar peer group. Synonymous with scores.

An Italian sweet wine made from dried (passito) grapes.

Recioto della Valpolicella is an intensely flavored, sweet red wine made from dried (passito) grapes in the Veneto region of northeastern Italy.

Removal and replacement of the original cork, due to age. In France, corks can be marked “Rebouchée.”

Created for tax purposes, red table wines vary in alcohol from 11%-14%. This is the same as a Table Wine.

Wine with a light to deep red color made from dark-skinned grapes.

The reductive-oxidative way that wine ages. As one part gains oxygen and becomes oxidized, another part loses oxygen and becomes reduced. Early in its life, a wine will exhibit oxidative aromas and traits due to the relatively recent influence and exposure of oxygen when the wine was barrel aged and/or bottled.

A wine that has just completed fermentation requires finished oxygen to develop correctly. Oak barrels are the perfect vessel, as they allow the correct amount of oxygen to enter the wine. Reductive wine develops when the wine is under oxidization. It is the opposite of oxidized wine where too much oxygen is present in the wine.

A large bottle holding 4.5 liters, the equivalent of six regular wine bottles.

Italian term for theyield of grapes from a vineyard

Italian term for the aftertaste of a wine

Thousands of years ago the Greeks discovered that adding pine resin (pitch) to wine helped to keep it preserved by preventing the wine from spoiling. Apparently they became enamored of its distinct taste in wine, and Retsina, with its resin flavor still derived from pitch, is the direct descendent of its ancient predecessor.

In Germany the phrase indicates wines made in the Rhine Valley. In the U.S., however, the phrase is generic and applied mostly to semi-sweet white wines with an alcohol content under fourteen percent.

One of the longest rivers in Western Europe, it starts in Switzerland and then wends its way into and through France in a valley that for a 125 mile stretch makes up one of the great French wine regions - from Avignon in the south of France to just below Vienne to the north.

A wine blend made with grapes commonly found in wines from France’s Rhône region, including Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre and Viognier.

French term for a very sweet wine. Often used as a description for very sweet sparkling wine.

Along with Chardonnay, one of the top white grapes in the world. The most popular Riesling wines come from Germany, Alsace, and Austria.

Italian term for the refermentation process, which involves to let the yeast act over the sugar of a wine, after the first fermentation.

Italian term for a wine of high alcohol content, with greater complexity because it is blended with the skins of the grapes used in a dry grape wine. This way, a second fermentation begins.

A ripe wine is one that is produced when its grapes have reached the optimum level of maturity.

The descriptor in Italy (regulated by Italian law) that means the wine has been aged a certain number of years. Just how much depends on the wine.

Tasting term describing wine that is similar to a big and full-bodied wine, but with stronger flavors and aromas. Robust is a positive descriptive term.

Italian term for robust

Italian term for a rosé wine

French for "pink" and used to describe a category of refreshing wines that are pink in color but are made from red grapes.

Many a vacationer returns with photos of roses growing happily at the end of row after row of grapevines. They are essentially a viticultural canary-in-the-mine.

The word for "red" in Italian. In Italy, it sometimes makes up a part of the name of a wine, as in Rosso Piceno or Rosso di Montepulciano.

Italian term foru a ''round'' wine, that is well balanced and has a moderate acidity

German word for red wines.

The French word for "red." In France "vin rouge" is red wine and the phrase is often used to order the house red.

A French term used to describe wine that is in the process of fermenting. It is still cloudy and contains yeasts in suspension. It is rich in sugars, which have not yet been transformed into alcohol.

A wine-producing locale in the south of France near the city of Perpignan, just north of the border with Spain. The region is commonly referred to as Languedoc-Roussillon but Roussillon has a character that is unique. A lot of honest, well-made table wine is produced in Roussillon, with Cinsault as the most common base varietal blended with Grenache, Syrah or Mourvedre.

Italian term for the ruby color of some wines.

A style of Port wine that is generally sweet. Also, could be referred to the color appearance of a wine.

An American grape variety cross-bred from the Cabernet Sauvignon and Cinsault grapes. Developed in 1948 at the University of California at Davis, the grape variety was intended to be a more commercially viable alternative to Cabernet Sauvignon, which was slow to ripen.

A type of port wine that has undergone aging in a wood barrel for two to three years. Because they're produced from relatively low-quality wines and bottled while still young (and bright red), ruby ports are usually the least expensive of the port wines.

The name for the Pinot Gris or Pinot Grigio grape in Germany.

A wine that is unrefined and hearty.