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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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HEALTH

Perrier problems: What’s going on with French mineral water?

Perrier has halted production of 1-litre bottles of its famous carbonated water because of a contamination problem - the latest in a series of problems with some of France's most famous mineral water brands.

Published: 14 June 2024 15:03 CEST
Perrier problems: What’s going on with French mineral water?

The French love bottled water. They spent an estimated €2.5 billion and drank an average of 145 bottles each of the stuff in 2023.

The country is both the world’s biggest exporter of bottled water and the home of its most famous brands from Volvic to Evian, Vittel to Perrier.

But all is far from well in the highly lucrative bottled water market.

In January, it was reported that a third of French mineral water brands received treatments which are banned for the supposedly ‘natural’ products and, in April, France’s health watchdog demanded a clampdown at Nestlé water sites after traces of “faecal” contamination were found.

Meanwhile drought conditions last year raised concerns about overproduction of bottled water in France, with companies exempted from water restrictions that everyone else faced.

Perrier problems

Now, it has emerged that Nestlé has halted production of one-litre bottles of Perrier water at its facility in Vergèze, in the Gard département in south-west France, according to Le Monde and Radio France.

After learning in April that one of the plant’s wells had been shut down following a ‘contamination episode’ after flooding caused by Storm Monica, the investigation has found that two more wells have recently undergone disinfection operations – which the Nestlé group said was a ‘regular maintenance operation’.

Following the April contamination warning, State authorities ordered the destruction of a batch of at least two million bottles of Perrier. The final number of destroyed bottles was around 2.9 million, according to Nestlé group’s own estimates.

Officials, including members of the Occitanie regional health authority, visited the Vergèze facility on May 30th to inspect the plant, boreholes and water quality monitoring laboratory. The findings of this inspection have not yet been made public.

But of seven wells used to produce Perrier brand fizzy mineral water, most are currently out of service, the investigation found – prompting production of the famous one-litre green bottles of Perrier water to be halted until at least the end of summer.

A préfectural decree means the company can draw water from two boreholes to produce a drink called Maison Perrier, which will not have ‘natural mineral water’ status.

Water conditions

The risk to water quality is not confined to the Vergèze operation. Safety concerns have been known by health authorities for years in the Vosges region where the Hépar, Contrex and Vittel brands are drawn, the investigation found, citing a confidential report in which officials expressed concern about the withdrawal of illicit treatments, which could “expose consumers to a health risk, as the treatments were put in place to compensate for a quality defect in the resource”.

In June 2023, in a letter sent to food safety watchdog the Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire alimentaire nationale (Anses), the director of Occitanie’s regional health authority referred to “regular bacteriological contamination of raw water in at least five of the seven drilling”. 

In October of the same year, Anses alerted the government of an “insufficient level of confidence” to ensure “the health quality of finished products”.

Nestlé’s response

Nestlé said that it had initiated a plan to transform its factories, in agreement with authorities. “We have invested significantly, and will continue to do so, to protect this unique heritage and ensure its future,” the group told journalists from Le Monde and Radio France.

But unions are concerned about the future of the plant and its 1,000 employees and have triggered a clause in the Code du travail meaning they will be alerted of “facts likely to affect the economic situation of the company”, amid concerns authorities could order the shutdown of the plant for safety reasons.

So, is bottled water in France safe to drink?

There are two main types of bottled water in France – spring water and mineral water. 

Spring water is subject to the same safety regulations as tap water. But it cannot undergo disinfection treatment. Be aware, a single brand of spring water can in fact come from several sources located in different regions, and the composition can change bottle-by-bottle, depending on the origin.

Mineral waters are not subject to the same safety rules as tap water – in fact, some mineral waters would not be allowed in the public drinking water system because they would not meet strict criteria. For example, fluoride levels are limited at 1.5 mg/l for tap water; mineral waters, however, can contain up to 5 mg/l.

Like spring water, mineral water should not be subject to disinfection treatments.

But, on the whole, and despite recent concerns, bottled water in France is safe to drink.

And which one is the cheapest?

Tap water. According to consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir it costs €0.003 per litre, on average, or less than €2 per year for a consumption of 1.5 litres of tap water every day.

And it is subjected to all kinds of routine checks – 54 different parameters are monitored pretty much all the time.

6 things to know about tap water in France

If you’re not a fan of the taste, you could always run it through a water filter. It will be more expensive, but still cheaper than bottled water – and still subject to the same number of safety checks, plus it has been filtered.

It’s also better for the planet because tap water doesn’t involve plastic bottles – the city of Paris is currently running a campaign to encourage people to drink tap water in order to reduce waste in the form of plastic bottles. The city has hundreds of drinking water fountains and businesses that display the L’Eau de Paris’ label will refill your water bottle for free.

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