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FOOD AND DRINK

Vital vocabulary for French wine tasting

Words and phrases to learn to impress your friends with your wine knowledge on a tour of France’s many and glorious wineries - and during the all-important tasting session.

Published: 5 May 2023 16:39 CEST
Updated: 27 June 2023 08:18 CEST
Vital vocabulary for French wine tasting
A wine-tasting in south-west France. AFP PHOTO (Photo by AFP)

If you spend any length of time in France, a vineyard tour and wine-tasting is almost obligatory, not to mention choosing wine in restaurants and savouring a good bottle with family and friends.

But this can bring with it a certain amount of stress around the specialist and technical French vocab particular to wine.

This is because the world of wine, really rather unfairly it has to be said, has a reputation as a world of high-minded connoisseurs, with lingering notes of pretentiousness and an aroma of self-superiority.

READ ALSO How to taste wine like a professional (according to French experts)

In truth, it mostly isn’t like that, especially away from the grand cru set – and going on a vineyard tour, or a wine-tasting is one of the joys of being in France.

Although many of the bigger vineyards offer English-speaking tours, it’s still a good idea to know at least some French terms – this is France, and knowing a few words always helps break the ice – when you head to the winery. 

READ ALSO 9 tips for enjoying a French vineyard tour (and wine tasting)

Let’s start with the basics; a red wine is a vin rouge, a white is a vin blanc. Rosé is the same in both languages and you might also come across a vin jaune (yellow wine) – this is a particular style of white wine.

A grape is, confusingly, called un raisin in French (what’s a raisin in French? It’s un raisin sec – a dried grape. Logical).

In terms of where the wine is made, the French term for vineyard is un vignoble while a wine cellar is une cave. (pronounced oon-cav). This is also the term used for a specialist wine shop. 

READ ALSO What does the AOP/AOC label on French food and wine mean – and are these products better?

When describing the flavour or taste of a wine you might hear your sommelier (the person serving you, be nice to them) mention certain wines being sucré (sugary); or talk about l’acidité (acidity); l’amer (bitter) and salé (salty). They may also mention sec (dry), doux (sweet), or corsé (full-bodied).

You’ll also hear many mentions of the terroir (te-woaaah) – this technically translates as soil or earth, but in wine terms it means how the growing environment (the soil, the weather, the altitude, the farming practices etc) affects the grape and thus the taste of the wine. For some producers terroir has an almost mystical importance.

Here are some other useful terms and phrases:

Dégustation (day-gus-tass-yon) – A tasting. You may see the word on a sign outside a vineyard. You can wish someone a ‘nice tasting’ by saying ‘Bonne dégustation‘. 

Je vais prendre un verre de blanc (jhe vay prond-rr un verr de blan) – I’ll take a glass of white [wine]

La couleur/ la robe (la cool-err / la robb)  – The colour of the wine. It’s important to mention this, and try to use synonyms for the classic colours. 

Faire tourner (fair turn-ay) – swirl. As in swirl the wine in your glass to release the…

Bouquet (boo – kay) – the aroma of the wine when you taste it. Try to remember fruit and flowers and use those terms. If you can, sneak a look at the bottle. That usually tells you what the vintner / marketing people think it smells of.

Je préfère les vins fruités. (jhe preh-fir lay ven freetay) – I prefer fruity wines. Feel free to substitute the adjective according to your wine preferences. Options include: frais (fray) – fresh; pétillants (pett-e-lon) – sparkling; liquoreux (lick-or-err) – sweet; boisés (bwa-say) – oaky.

Sentir les arômes (sonteer lez a-romm) – Smell the aromas. Another way of saying bouquet.

Prendre une gorgée (prend-rr oone gorjay) – To take a sip

C’est un vin doux / sec / corsé / épicé (set un van doo / sec / cor-say / eh-pee-say) – it’s a sweet / dry / full-bodied / spicy wine

Ce vin est bon (se ven ey bon) – you like the wine, you intend to buy half-a-dozen bottles. Say this. 

Ce vin est de la piquette (se ven ey de la pick-ett). DO NOT SAY THIS – EVEN IN JEST. It means the wine tastes ‘cheap’ and references a drink made out of the skins, pulp, seeds, and stems of grapes and water. Better to simply leave the wine, or – if there’s a bucket for the purpose (and there may be) – politely tip it into there before moving on to, hopefully better, wines.

Une région viticole (oona rej-eon vit-e-col)  a wine-growing region

Vendange (ven-danj) – the French for “grape harvest”. If you are in wine country at the end of the summer, you may be able to help out at one. It’s genuinely hard work, though.

Le cépage (le seh-parj) – the grape variety. Honestly, there are so many varieties of grape, and some of them are pretty rare… Braucol, anyone, or Duras, which are used to make Gaillac wines in southwest France…

un amateur / une amatrice de vin (un amateur / amatreece de ven)  – a wine lover

Oh, and already we’ve covered what to say if you’ve enjoyed a little too much vineyard hospitality.

READ ALSO ‘I broke my face’: How to say you’ve had too much to drink in French

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SCHOOLS

Are packed lunches really banned in French schools?

School children in France are entitled to a lunchtime meal of three, or even four courses – but what if you prefer to provide meals yourself? 

Published: 22 May 2024 12:24 CEST
Are packed lunches really banned in French schools?

French school meals are, famously, pretty good – children get a three or even four-course meal of properly prepared dishes and the menu (including cheese course) is usually published in the local town newsletter so everyone can see the types of meals being served.

The concept of a proper meal at lunchtime is an important one. “The diet of a school-age child is essential for their growth, mental development and learning abilities,” the French Education Ministry says in a preamble about school meals on its website. “It must be balanced, varied and distributed throughout the day: for example 20 percent of total energy in the morning, 40 percent at midday, 10 percent at four o’clock and 30 percent in the evening.”

And it’s not all about nutrition, the social aspect of sitting together and eating a meal is also important – the ministry continues: “Mealtime is an opportunity for students to relax and communicate. It should also be a time for discovery and enjoyment.”

All schools provide meals in a canteen and most pupils take up the opportunity – however it’s also possible for pupils to go home at lunchtime so that they can eat lunch with their parents.

The idea of taking in a packed lunch (panier-repas) is much less common in France – but is it actually banned?

The rules on lunch

At écoles (up to age 11), the local authority or établissement public de coopération intercommunale (EPCI) is responsible for providing quality school meals. This generally involves meals being provided via a central kitchen, and then delivered to the school’s kitchen, where it can be kept warm, or reheated as necessary.

The system is slightly different in collèges and lycées (attended by children aged 11 and up). In those establishments, catering falls into the purview of the wider département or region – and is routinely managed directly by individual establishments, which will have catering staff on site to prepare meals. Often, meal services are outsourced to private businesses, which operate the kitchens.

There are various rules and regulations in place regarding what food is offered, and how long a child has to eat – which is, in part, why the school lunch period is so long. Children must be allowed a 30-minute period to eat their meal, from the moment they sit down with it at the table. 

Then, they’re given time to play and relax before afternoon classes start.

READ ALSO What you need to know if your child is starting school in France

At a minimum lunch must include a main course with a side dish, a dairy-based product, as well as a starter and/or a dessert. Meals must also, the government says, be composed of 50 percent sustainable quality products (including 20 percent organic).

Some local authorities go further and serve only or mostly food that is organic, locally sourced or both.

Water and bread must be freely available, but salt and condiments can only be added in preparation – no sauce bottles or salt and pepper on the tables. 

Daily menus are generally available to view on school websites and many town newspapers or newsletters also publish them.

Parents pay a fee for the school lunch, which is calculated according to income and can be free in the case of low-income families.

Packed lunch

But what if your child doesn’t like the school lunches and you don’t have time to pick them up, cook a full lunch and take them back in the afternoon everyday? The obvious solution would seem to be to send them in with a packed lunch, as is common in the UK and USA.

In theory this is possible, but only in certain circumstances and with very strict rules and caveats. 

The Ministry, in a written response to a Senator’s question in 2019, said: “The use of packed lunches [home-supplied meals] by primary school students can provide an alternative to school meals. This method of catering is authorised in particular for children with a medically established food allergy or intolerance, requiring an adapted diet.”

READ ALSO How to enrol a non-French speaking child in school in France

It added: “the preparation and use of packed lunches in schools must follow certain rules. First of all, it is important to respect the cold chain”.

The cold chain is a term applied to food handling and distribution – it’s usually used by food-preparation businesses, but in the context of a packed lunch it means that food prepared at home must be kept in appropriately cool conditions until it is ready to eat. It would be the responsibility of parents to ensure that the food is delivered to school in containers appropriate for the job (ie an insulated cool bag).

Once at the school, it is up to whoever manages the kitchen to ensure that food is properly reheated. This becomes the sticking point at which many parents’ requests to send their children to school with a packed lunch, rather than go to the canteen, or eat back at home, are refused.

The reheating concern suggests that schools are also expecting parents to prepare a proper meal – rather than just throwing some sandwiches and a cereal bar into a bag.

Unless there’s a genuine and proven health reason for your child to eat a home-prepared meal, most parents will probably find the school won’t budge on this – even in cases of a strike by kitchen staff or lunch monitors.

READ ALSO Just how much do private schools in France cost?

The Ministry’s written response explains: “[A]s this is an optional public service, the municipality can justify its refusal to admit the children concerned by objective material and financial constraints, such as the need to equip itself with additional refrigerators, or for additional supervisory staff to supervise them during lunch.”

As well as the practicalities, for some schools this is an equality issue – because of the varied fee structure for school lunches what happens in effect is that richer parents are subsidising a good quality lunchtime meal for poorer students in the class; if everyone brought in a packed lunch and therefore stopped paying the fee, the lower-income kids would miss out. 

What about allergies or other health issues?

Children with allergies or other health issues that require a particular diet must be accommodated. An individual meal plan – known as a projet d’accueil individualisé (PAI) can be set up. More details (in French) are available here, on the government’s website.

It also becomes easier for parents to provide home-produced meals in such instances. As ever, it is up to the parents to ensure any meals are appropriately packaged and transported to school.

Not all schools

Some individual schools in France do permit pupils to bring in meals from home. They must be taken to school in an appropriate cold-storage container, and they will be stored in the kitchen area until they are needed, when meals will – if necessary – be reheated.

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