Volcanic Wine Awards | 25th anniversary events | The Jancis Robinson Story

Wine language – false friends and confusing terms

Monday 23 September 2024 • 1 min read
jumbled speech illustration

The wine world is filled with words that are easily confused or misused. Here are some of the most common.

Language is not set in stone but in some instances the evolution of a word, or misuse that slowly becomes the norm, results in a loss of precision or clarity.

In an earlier life, BW (before wine), as a language-specialist copy-editor for Cambridge University Press working mostly on books about French, German and linguistics, I had the pleasure of editing a book by Jean Aitchison, Emeritus Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Oxford, entitled Language Change: Progress...

Become a member to continue reading
Member
$135
/year
Save over 15% annually
Ideal for wine enthusiasts
  • Access 289,030 wine reviews & 15,887 articles
  • Access The Oxford Companion to Wine & The World Atlas of Wine
Inner Circle
$249
/year
 
Ideal for collectors
  • Access 289,030 wine reviews & 15,887 articles
  • Access The Oxford Companion to Wine & The World Atlas of Wine
  • Early access to the latest wine reviews & articles, 48 hours in advance
Professional
$299
/year
For individual wine professionals
  • Access 289,030 wine reviews & 15,887 articles
  • Access The Oxford Companion to Wine & The World Atlas of Wine
  • Early access to the latest wine reviews & articles, 48 hours in advance
  • Commercial use of up to 25 wine reviews & scores for marketing
Business
$399
/year
For companies in the wine trade
  • Access 289,030 wine reviews & 15,887 articles
  • Access The Oxford Companion to Wine & The World Atlas of Wine
  • Early access to the latest wine reviews & articles, 48 hours in advance
  • Commercial use of up to 250 wine reviews & scores for marketing
Pay with
Visa logo Mastercard logo American Express logo Logo for more payment options
Join our newsletter

Get the latest from Jancis and her team of leading wine experts.

By subscribing you agree with our Privacy Policy and provide consent to receive updates from our company.

More Wine boot camp

daft wine words - wordcloud
Wine boot camp Last year I wrote about another aspect of wine language: false friends and confusing terms. Today it’s the turn of...
Riesling from Keller’s Shubertslay in the Mosel 2024 harvest
Wine boot camp The newest EU regulations on ingredient and nutrition labelling provide quick access to a wealth of important and useful information...
Many glasses of rose wine at wine tasting, seen from overhead
Wine boot camp Asked recently if pink and orange wines were the same, Julia explains why they are not, and delves into the...
Clonakilla Shiraz-Viognier
Wine boot camp Stemmy has become so popular as a tasting term that Julia had to add it to the stems entry in...

More from JancisRobinson.com

White wine grapes from Shutterstock
Free for all Favourites among the quirkier vine varieties. A shorter version of this article, with fewer recommendations, is published by the Financial...
Otto the dog standing on a snow-covered slope in Portugal's Douro, and the Wine news in 5 logo
Wine news in 5 Plus, wet weather makes California drought-free for the first time in 25 years and leaves snow on Douro vineyards. Much...
Benoit and Emilie of Etienne Sauzet
Tasting articles The last of our alphabetically organised tasting articles: reviews of wines tasted by Matthew in the Côte d’Or and by...
Stéphane, José and Vanessa Ferreira of Quinta do Pôpa
Wines of the week If there’s one country that excels at value-priced wines, it would have to be Portugal. This is yet another wine...
Simon Rollin
Tasting articles The penultimate of 12 alphabetically organised tasting articles: reviews of wines tasted by Matthew in the Côte d’Or and by...
Iceland snowy scene
Inside information For this month’s adventures Ben heads north to Denmark, Sweden and Norway. We’d arrived in a country whose Nordic angles...
Shaggy (Sylvain Pataille) and his dog Scoubidou
Tasting articles The 10th of 12 alphabetically organised tasting articles: reviews of wines tasted by Matthew in the Côte d’Or and by...
Olivier Merlin
Tasting articles The ninth of 12 alphabetically organised tasting articles: reviews of wines tasted by Matthew in the Côte d’Or and by...
Wine inspiration delivered directly to your inbox, weekly
Our weekly newsletter is free for all
By subscribing you're confirming that you agree with our Terms and Conditions.