How To Read A Wine Label
Wine labels can be confusing, there is a lot of different information on the front and back of the bottle but what does it all mean? Pick up a bottle near you, or take a look at the labels above, what do you see?
Depending on the country you are in, there are different things that are required to be on the label by law: alcohol as a percentage by volume may be one of them, estate, country, health warnings, grape or particular blend percentages. Then there are things that the winemaker or marketing team will put on to make the wine "more expensive" or fetch a higher price, like "organic", "biodynamic" and "old vine".
Look at the label below, its pretty traditional, nothing too fancy, while giving loads of information. The wine farm is front and center, L'Huguenot with a pretty little picture of what we can presume is the farm in the early days. For those who are a little more well-traveled, youll notice right at the top is a picture of 3 arches. That is the Huguenot Monument in Franschoek, Cape Town, and just like that we know the wine is from Franschoek, in South Africa and the farm was established in 1688.
It's got the grapes right there on the front, Shiraz and Pinotage, so we know its a blend. Percentages of each might be on the back label but they're not required. Even just looking at the way Shiraz is spelled, can tell us a little more about the style, Syrah would be more of a French style (elegant, smooth, white pepper) while Shiraz is more New World in style (plummy and jammy in flavour profile). Then on the bottom we see the vintage of the wine, 2010, and confirmation of the origin of the wine.
The back label can have more information, government warnings, tasting notes, alcohol level by volume, regulatory body stickers, barcodes etc. but thats the gist of it... All this information helps to establish an idea of what to expect when we open the wines. If you find an importer label on the bottle, take a look at the rest of their portfolio, you might like more bottles on their list, or if the wine is imported by an individual, find one whose palate aligns with yours and explore.
Source via: Wine Folly & The Washington Post