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Wine

Fermented fresh grapes, defined by the OIV and U.S. law: the styles, the label rules on grape, place and year, and where to start.

Level 1 · Start here4 min readUpdated October 2026 Wine shelf

In one sip

Wine is fermented grape juice, and almost everything interesting about it comes from three choices: which grapes, where they grew, and what the winemaker did with the skins, the sugar and time. Learn those three and any label starts to read clearly.

Where it started

Where wine was first made is disputed. Wines of South Africa says it is generally accepted to be Persia, with evidence back to about 6000 BC, spreading to Egypt and Phoenicia;1 a 2017 study of pottery residues from Georgia in the South Caucasus dates its evidence for grape wine to about 6000–5800 BC.9 In France, Provence claims the first vines, brought by Greek settlers who founded Marseille about 2,600 years ago.2 Modern wine was shaped by a disaster: phylloxera, a root-eating insect, reached Europe in 1863, and growers saved their vineyards by grafting onto American rootstock.3 The International Organisation of Vine and Wine, the OIV, was created in 1924 partly to fight artificial wines; its formal definition of wine dates from 1973.4

Where and how it's made

The OIV defines wine as the beverage resulting exclusively from fermenting fresh grapes or grape must, with at least 8.5 percent alcohol; some regions may go down to 7 percent by local law.5 Anything else, from plums to apples, is a fruit wine.

Color comes from the skins: the pulp of black grapes is colorless.6 Ferment the juice with the skins for days and you get red; a few hours and you get rosé; press first and you get white, even from black grapes.7 Stop the fermentation early with grape spirit and you have a fortified wine. Trap the fermentation's gas in a sealed bottle or tank and you have sparkling wine.[^cfr4.21]

U.S. federal law sorts grape wine into classes. Table wine is 14 percent or less; dessert wine is above 14 and up to 24.[^cfr4.21] The label rules are worth memorising: - A grape name on a U.S. label needs at least 75 percent of that variety, or 51 percent for labrusca grapes such as Concord.[^cfr4.23] - A state or county name needs 75 percent of the grapes from there; an American Viticultural Area needs 85 percent.[^cfr4.25] - A vintage year needs 95 percent from that harvest with an AVA, 85 percent otherwise.[^cfr4.27] - Estate bottled means the winery grew all the grapes in the AVA and made the wine on site.[^cfr4.26] - Alcohol may be off by 1.5 points either way at 14 percent or less.[^cfr4.36]

How to taste it

Use a glass with a bowl that narrows at the top and fill it a third of the way. Look at color and clarity, swirl, smell in short sniffs, then taste for sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol and how long the flavor lasts. Serve whites cold but not icy and reds a little below room temperature; New Zealand Wine suggests 15°C for Pinot Noir.8 Pairings to start with: Sauvignon Blanc with goat cheese, Pinot Noir with salmon, Cabernet Sauvignon with steak.

Styles and what the label means

Red winefermented on the skins.Open →White winejuice pressed off the skins before fermentation.Open →Rosébrief skin contact.Open →Sparkling winefizz from fermentation in a closed container.Open →Fortified winegrape spirit added.Open →Dessert winesweet wine from late harvest, noble rot or frozen grapes.Open →Natural and orange wineminimal intervention; whites with skin contact.Open →Kosher wine and mevushalwine made under kosher supervision.Open →Red grape varietiesthe grapes behind the reds.Open →White grape varietiesthe grapes behind the whites.Open →FranceBordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace, Loire, Provence.Open →ItalyChianti Classico, Barolo, Brunello.Open →Spain and PortugalRioja and Portugal's native grapes.Open →USAAVAs from Napa to Oregon.Open →New WorldNew Zealand, South Africa, Chile, Argentina, Australia.Open →

Words to know

Tap a term to get asked about it in The Tasting Room.

VintageVarietalAppellationAVATable wineRootstockOIV
Vintage — the harvest year on the label.[^cfr4.27]
Varietal — a wine named for its grape.[^cfr4.23]
Appellation — the place name on a label, with rules attached.[^cfr4.25]
AVA — American Viticultural Area, a delimited grape-growing region.[^cfr4.25]
Table wine — U.S. class for wine at 14 percent or less.[^cfr4.21]
Rootstock — the American roots most European vines are grafted onto.
OIV — the international reference body for vine and wine.

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Sources

  1. Wines of South Africa — Back to the beginning accessed 2026-10-12
  2. Vins de Provence (CIVP) — History accessed 2026-10-12
  3. Comité Champagne — Champagne and its history accessed 2026-10-12
  4. OIV — 12 months, 12 resolutions: The definition of wine accessed 2026-10-12
  5. OIV International Code of Oenological Practices — 3.1 Basic definition of wine accessed 2026-10-12
  6. Vins de Provence (CIVP) — Elaboration of rosé accessed 2026-10-12
  7. Comité Champagne — Grape varieties accessed 2026-10-12
  8. New Zealand Winegrowers — Pinot Noir accessed 2026-10-12
  9. McGovern et al., Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus, PNAS 2017 (PMC full text) accessed 2026-10-12

Photo: W.carter, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

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