Not Just Another Pretty Face

Would you drink a glass of Fat Bastard? Cook with a little Marilyn Merlot? How about drinking some Screw Kappa Nappa at your next college reunion? Wine labels, once dominated by fancy verbiage, have gone from frumpy to funky. But, playing the name game can be tricky. To see more unique labels, visit this site:


http://www.winelabels.org/


Although it is fun to buy a wine with an interesting label, learning some label lingo can arm you with the tools to make you a savvy consumer.


Labels all provide the same general information, with only minor differences in format and content. You will find the wine maker or winery, the appellation (which is the country or region where the grapes for this wine were grown), the vintage, the grape variety, and for foreign wines, the national regulations. German wines, for example, carry an "Amptliche Prüfungs Nummer (AP Number)," the serial number it received during official testing. French wines may carry their ranking from traditional classifications (such as "Cru Bourgeois" on a Bordeaux). Wine labels also carry small print disclosing the wine's approximate alcoholic content and the size of the bottle, as highlighted on the Spanish and U.S. wine labels.

Learn a new language today, read a wine label.