While there is a lot to learn about wine, whether you are a beginner or an experienced wine lover there is always room to improve your wine vocabulary. This hub is geared more towards wine for beginners though so I'd like to go over a few essential wine words.

Below are some of the more widely used words that are associated with wine.

Aroma: Wine grapes each have their own characteristic aromas that come out in a wine varietal derived from the grapes soil and surrounding environment called its terroir [tare-wha]. A wine varietal is merely the name of the grape that appears on a bottle of wine, ie. a bottle of Merlot is made from the Merlot grape. While that bottle may only contain 75% of pure Merlot it is still considered Merlot. And this will have distinct aromatic differences than say another red wine like Zinfandel or Cabernet Sauvignon.

Bouquet: This is similar to aroma but better describes the characteristics that come from the production style of the wine. Certain production techniques impart different aromas to a wine. A good example is how Chardonnay can take on a banana aroma when it goes through malo-lactic fermentation.

Color: Every wine has a distinct color. While all red wines might appear the same to the novice, every varietal has its own color portfolio from which it is recognized. Cabs are heavy reds that are dark plum to near black; Pinot Noirs appear more rust colored to dark cherry.

Clarity: Clarity refers to how clear the wine appears. That may sound misleading so let me clarify. Not clear as in transparent, but clear as in it's not cloudy. Cloudy wine is a sign of a bad wine, or of a wine fault as it's termed. Don't drink a cloudy wine. Now the other side of that is that sometimes older red wines will crystallize and form sediment. In this case it's not unlike the wine to be knocked around causing the sediment to get stirred. This wine is okay to drink. You just need to put it through a decanter and not drink the sediment.

Body: This describes the weight of the wine. A wine's weight is determined by the alcohol content. A low-alcohol content wine, like most Old World wines are considered light-bodied. Old World refers to wines made in the Old Countries of Europe: France, Italy, Germany, etc. A wine with a high alcohol content is considered a full-bodied wine. These are typically your bigger red varietals like Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Mouthfeel: Almost the same thing as body, but mouthfeel refers to a wine's texture. It also relates to the production of the wine. For example if you age a Chardonnay in oak barrels it will have a creamy texture. That is its mouthfeel, heavier and creamy. Sometimes heavy red wines can have a chewy mouthfeel. On the converse of creamy is tart. The same Chardonnay could be aged in steel and it would have a lighter but acidic mouthfeel.

There are many more terms of course, but these are the usual suspects that you will come across. Among some of the other more common which would take up a hub all its own is sweet and dry. More or less a wine's sweetness is based on the amount of sugar in it, if that doesn't sound obvious. But most people confuse wanting a sweet wine with wanting a fruity wine and that's where it gets complicated.