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Four words to learn first
Tannin
The drying, grippy feeling in red wine, like strong tea. It comes from grape skins and seeds.
Sip a strong red and run your tongue over your gums. That dry, furry feeling is tannin.
Acidity
The mouth-watering freshness in a wine, like the tang in lemonade. It keeps wine lively and helps it go with food.
If your mouth waters after a sip, the wine has plenty of acidity.
Oak
Many wines are aged in oak barrels, which add flavours such as vanilla, toast and spice.
Smell vanilla, toast or coconut? That is usually the barrel talking.
Terroir
A French word for everything about the place a wine comes from: soil, slope and weather.
Taste the same grape from two different places, side by side. The difference is terroir.
Everyday wine words
Wine basics →- Appellation
- An official, legally protected place name for wine, such as Chablis or Napa Valley.
- Blend
- A wine made from more than one grape. Red Bordeaux and most Champagne are blends.
- Body
- How heavy the wine feels in your mouth. Think skimmed milk for light and cream for full.
- Brut
- On sparkling wine, dry. Extra Brut is drier still.
- Corked
- A fault that makes wine smell of damp cardboard. It comes from a tainted cork, not from bits of cork in the glass.
- Cru
- French for a vineyard or estate of recognised quality. Grand cru is the top rank.
- Decant
- To pour wine into a jug before serving, either to give it air or to leave sediment behind.
- Dry
- Not sweet. Most wine is dry.
- Finish
- The taste that stays after you swallow. A long finish is a good sign.
- Non-vintage
- A blend of several years, common in Champagne. Shown as NV.
- Sommelier
- The person in a restaurant who looks after the wine and helps you choose.
- Varietal
- A wine made mostly from one grape and named after it, such as a Merlot.
- Vintage
- The year the grapes were picked.
The business words
Terms from the trade side of wine: buying, selling, shipping and pricing. Useful when you read the price pages on this site.
A
Allocation
The fixed quantity of a scarce wine a producer offers to a given importer or merchant each vintage, usually at a price well below the secondary market. In Burgundy and cult Napa, the allocation itself is a valuable right.
Appellation
A legally defined wine-producing area with rules on grapes, yields and methods (AOC/AOP in France, DOC/DOCG in Italy, AVA in the United States). Fixes the supply of a named wine to a mapped area.
B
Buyer's premium
The percentage an auction house adds to the hammer price, commonly 15–25%, paid by the buyer. One of the transaction costs that a gross return leaves out.
C
CAGR
Compound annual growth rate: the steady yearly rate that would take a starting value to an ending value over the years between, (end/start)^(1/years) − 1. Corkonomics annualises only spans of a year or more.
Classified growth (cru classé)
A château ranked in an official classification — the 1855 Médoc and Sauternes lists (first to fifth growths), Saint-Émilion's periodically revised list, the Graves classification. Fixes reputation and, with it, pricing power.
D
Drawdown
The largest decline from a previous peak in a price series, expressed as a negative percentage. Describes the worst moment of holding an asset, not its end result.
E
En primeur
The sale of Bordeaux wine as futures in the spring after the harvest, about eighteen months before bottling and delivery, at a price set by the château and offered through the Place de Bordeaux. Historically a discount for early commitment; in recent campaigns often not.
G
Grand cru
In Burgundy, a vineyard site at the top of the appellation hierarchy (33 in the Côte d'Or, about 550 ha). In Bordeaux, a term used in classifications with different meanings (Saint-Émilion Grand Cru is a broad appellation). In Champagne, one of 17 villages rated 100% on the échelle des crus.
Grape Crush Report
The annual California report (CDFA / USDA NASS) of tons crushed and weighted average prices per ton by district and variety — the most transparent grape-price record in the world, and the source of Napa's grape economics on this site.
H
HTS (Harmonized Tariff Schedule)
The United States tariff schedule, maintained by the USITC. Wine is heading 2204; the base duties are specific rates per litre (6.3¢/l for still wine ≤ 14% in containers ≤ 2 l; 19.8¢/l sparkling). Additional measures by origin sit on top.
Hammer price
The price at which an auction lot is knocked down, before the buyer's premium. The seller receives the hammer less commission; the buyer pays the hammer plus premium. Corkonomics records hammer and premium separately.
Hectolitre (hl)
One hundred litres, or 133 bottles of 750 ml. The unit of European wine production and yield.
I
IEEPA
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, cited for the 2025 'reciprocal' tariffs; the Supreme Court held on 20 February 2026 that it does not authorise tariffs, and the duties were refunded.
Imputed land cost
The opportunity cost of the capital tied up in a vineyard — its value times a cost of capital — charged per bottle. Used in the cost model because most top estates own land they never bought at market. Not a purchase price and not a cash cost.
In bond
Wine held in a licensed bonded warehouse on which duty and sales tax have not yet been paid. Trade prices are quoted in bond; the wine can be sold on without leaving. The warehouse record becomes part of the wine's provenance.
M
Monopole
A Burgundy vineyard owned entirely by one producer — Romanée-Conti and La Tâche (DRC), La Romanée (Liger-Belair). The purest case of fixed supply.
N
Négociant
A merchant house that buys wine (or grapes) from producers and sells it on under its own label or the producer's. In Bordeaux, the intermediary between château and importer, working on a margin of roughly 10–20%.
P
Place de Bordeaux
The distribution system of Bordeaux: châteaux sell to négociants through courtiers (brokers), who sell on to importers and merchants worldwide. Several non-Bordeaux wines — Opus One, Sassicaia, Masseto among them — also distribute through it.
Prestige cuvée
A Champagne house's top wine — Dom Pérignon, Cristal, Krug, La Grande Année — usually vintage, aged for years before release, and the collectible tier of the region.
Provenance
The documented history of a bottle or case: where it has been stored, by whom, since release. Priced explicitly by the market; a wine without provenance may be unsaleable at the top.
R
Real return
A return with inflation removed, so that a rise in price is separated from a fall in the value of money. Corkonomics deflates by the US consumer price index.
Release price
The price at which a producer first offers a vintage — ex-château en primeur in Bordeaux, the allocation price in Burgundy, the mailing-list price in Napa, the house price in Champagne. Recorded on Corkonomics with its currency, date and source.
S
SAFER
The French land agencies that publish vineyard prices by appellation each year (Le prix des terres). The source of French land values on this site.
Scarcity score
Corkonomics' 0–100 estimate of how hard a wine-vintage is to find: it starts from the bottles made, assumes a share is drunk every year, and adjusts for bottle size and the producer's standing. 100 means very few bottles are likely left; blank means no production figure is published. Not a rating of quality.
Secondary market
Every sale after the producer's first: merchants, auction houses and exchanges trading wine already released. Where scarce wines are priced in practice.
Section 301
A provision of the Trade Act of 1974 under which the US Trade Representative can impose duties in response to foreign practices. From 24 July 2026 the basis of the 10%/12.5% additional duties on imports from 60 economies, including wine.
T
Three-tier system
The US structure under which most wine passes from producer to distributor to retailer, each taking a margin; together they commonly double the winery price. Direct-to-consumer sales bypass it.
V
Volatility
The annualised standard deviation of changes between price observations — how jumpy a price path was. Corkonomics computes it only with eight or more observations.
Y
Yield
Grape or wine output per unit of vineyard: hectolitres per hectare in Europe, tons per acre in the United States, kilograms per hectare in Champagne. Appellation rules cap it; top estates crop below the cap. One hl/ha is about 133 bottles per hectare.