Paula Goddard’s Wines of the Week starting 23rd April 2019
You’ve read the columns, bought the bottles and drunk the wine. But how much do you really know about wine? A lot? A little? Dunno? Then why not find out with this ten question wine quiz. The answers are at the bottom of the page – so no peeking until you’ve at least had go or passed this quiz along to someone else.
Here we go:
1. The initials NV are commonly seen on Champagne bottles. What do they stand for?
2. When opening a bottle with a traditional corkscrew, do you turn it clockwise or anti-clockwise?
3. Of the two, which description describes the sweeter German wine, Spätlese or Beerenauslese?
4. From what white grape variety is Chablis wine produced?
5. Give the alternate spelling for Shiraz.
6. How many standard 125ml glasses of wine would you expect to pour from a magnum?
7. Which type of wine, on the whole, has a greater level of tannin: white, rosé or red?
8. French wines often have the initials AOC on the label. What does this stand for?
9. Paula, otherwise know as @huxelerebe, has a regular wine column on MatureTimes.co.uk – what’s it called?
10. What fruit is harvested from a vine?
The Answers
1. The initials NV stand for Non Vintage – that is no year or harvest from that year’s vintage – so this means the wine inside the bottle is not made from grapes from any named year of harvest so it must be a blend of several years.
2. Clockwise. Well it is using the corkscrew sitting in my kitchen drawer.
3. Beerenauslese is sweeter than Spätlese. German’s categorise their wines in terms of sweetness and Beernauslese is the sweetest wine you can get.
4. Chardonnay. If it’s labelled Chablis that’s what’s inside.
5. Shiraz can also be spelt Syrah. It’s the same grape variety just grown somewhere with a different spelling system.
6. A magnum is large bottle of wine – two bottles in fact. So that’s 12 lots of 125ml glasses of wine. You could just buy to standard-sized bottles to get the same quantity of course.
7. Tricky one this. It’s red wine. Tannin is found in grape pips and grape skins – and it’s the skins that give red wine its high tannin levels because these are added to the mix when you make red wine. Rosé wine has the skins taken out of the brew after only a short time so the tannin (and colour) is lower. In white wine the skins aren’t used at all. So now you know.
8. AOC stands for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée. It’s one of the French systems of controlling where the wine comes from. It’s a little out dated now – you’ll find all sorts of other quality acronyms on French bottles these days. Personally I’d rather see a list of ingredients and a calorie count on the bottle label. And hopefully these should arrive soon if the EU gets some legislation passed.
9. Paula’s Wines of the Week – this!
10. Umm, dunno.
Tweet me a wine question @huxelrebe
© Paula Goddard 2019 www.paulagoddard.com
