Wine is an alcoholic beverage made with the fermented juice of grapes. The difference between two popular drinks, wine and beer, is that brewing beer involves fermented grains. Simply, wine is made from fruit, wine corks for leg cramps beer is made from grains. Wine grapes are different than table grapes: they are smaller, sweeter, and have lots of seeds.

Buy the book, get a course. FREE with the purchase of Wine Folly: Magnum Edition. Wine grapes take an entire season to ripen, and thus, wine is produced just once a year. Hence, the origin of the term vintage. Age for the year it was made. When you see a vintage year listed on the label, that’s the year the grapes were picked and made into wine.

Wine Occasionally, you’ll find a wine without a vintage listed on the label. Single-Varietal Wine A single-varietal wine is made primarily with one type of grape. It’s common to see these wines labeled by the name of that grape variety. For example, a bottle of Riesling is made with Riesling grapes.

It’s useful to note that each country has different rules for how much of the variety should be included to be labeled as a varietal wine. Percentage of grapes required to be labeled as a single-varietal wine. Wine Blend A wine blend is a wine made with a blend of several grape varieties. Blending is a traditional winemaking method, and today there are several famous wine blends produced in classic winemaking regions. When grapes are blended and fermented together it is called a field blend. A famous example of a field blend is Port wine. The Taste of Wine Several facets explain wine’s unique flavor: acidity, sweetness, alcohol, tannin, and aroma compounds produced in fermentation.