Wine-Searcher Technical Wine Terms U to Z

'V'

• Varietal: Refers to a wine made from a single grape variety, most often which is declared on the label. A comparatively 'New World' phenomenon, varietal labeling is thought to be an useful marketing tool for well known international grape varieties as well as regional specialties like Austria's Grüner Veltliner or California's Zinfandel.
  
  
• Vigor: In grape-growing terms, vigor refers to the vegetative growth of the vine which depends on many factors, including the soil, availability of water and nutrients, climate, vineyard practices and the period of 'growing season'. It has a direct impact on the quality of grapes produced as both high and low vigor can severly affect the vine's ability to transfer vital nutrients necessary to achieve optimum fruit maturity.
  
  
• Vitis labrusca: The native grapevine of North America. As opposed to Vitis vinifera (see below), this species of vine lacks pronounced varietal characters. The distinct flavor in these grapes are often described as 'foxy' due to their animal fur like smell. Vitis labrusca does not have a lot of commercial significance except in some north-eastern American states.
  
  
• Vitis vinifera: Refers to the species of grapevine which originated in Europe and is responsible for the majority of world wine production, a reason why it is also known as the 'Common Grapevine'. Vitis Vinifera is associated with numerous advantages over the other vine species but it is due to the far superior varietal (see above) characters that these are preferred over others for quality wine production.
  
  

'W'

• Wild Yeast: The use/dependence of ambient or naturally occurring yeasts for wine production. In other words, when a cultured yeast strain is not used, the yeasts present on grape skins are often enough to start the fermentation. It is important to bear in mind though that there are both advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of wild yeasts for wine production. Its proponents believe that wines fermented this way display added complexity. On the other hand, their consistency in delivering the final product as well as overall performance is not definitive.
  
  
• Wine of Origin: The 'Wine of Origin' (WO) program defines the South African wine regions and is categorized into four classifications:
  • Geographical Entities: very generic labeling terms, like 'Northern Cape' or 'Western Cape'.
  • Regions: a large region encompassing many districts, like 'Costal Region'.
  • Districts: like 'Paarl' within the Coastal Region.
  • Wards: most fine grained of all Wine of Origin (WO) descriptions, like 'Franschhoek Valley' in the Paarl district of Coastal region.

'Y'

• Yield: Is a term denoting the total production of grapes from a vine or vineyard in particular but sometimes also takes into account a region as a whole. Yield is realted to vine vigor (see above) and in most cases determines the quality of fruit with extraordinarily high yield often associated with low quality. Therefore, some of the fine wine regions around the world have clearly laid out yield limits as part of the local 'appellation' laws.
  Yield is measured in various ways depending on geography but the most common units are tonne/ha (or ton/ha) and kgs/acre. It is also common to describe yield in hectoliters/ha (hl/ha) to refer to the amount of wine that can be produced from a particular area's production.