Maderized

A term for a wine that has been subject to a long period of heat and oxidation. The best-known example is Madeira, from which the term maderized comes. Table wines should not be maderized.

A wine that tastes of “gout de terroir” usually tastes earthy.

Answer: False.

I love the French term gout de terroir, but like so many French expressions, it exits some place halfway between the literal and the romantic. Gout de terroir (literally taste of the terroir) is the distinctive flavor a wine acquires from the combination of a given grape variety grown in a specific place. Over time, for example, winemakers notice that a certain variety (say, cabernet sauvignon), from a certain plot of ground always has the same discernable flavors--pepperyness, blueberryness, or whatever. That’s gout de terroir. So for some wines the gout de terroir may indeed be earthy; but not for others.

“I like on the table, when we’re speaking, the light of a bottle of intelligent wine.”

—Pablo Neruda
Chilean poet, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1904 – 1973)

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