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A corked wine smells like wet cardboard, damp basement, musty newspaper, or mouldy towel. The culprit is TCA (2,4,6-trichloroanisole), a chemical produced when fungi in the cork react with chlorine-based compounds. Humans can detect it at incredibly low levels — just a few parts per trillion. About 2-5% of natural cork-sealed bottles are affected. The wine won't harm you, but it will taste flat and unpleasant.
A dessert wine is a sweet wine typically served at the end of a meal, with residual sugar levels above 45 g/L. The sweetness can come from noble rot (Sauternes, Tokaji), late harvesting, grape drying (Recioto, Vin Santo), freezing on the vine (Eiswein), or adding grape spirit to stop fermentation (Port, Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise). The best dessert wines balance their sweetness with vibrant acidity.
Red wine gets its colour from anthocyanins — natural pigments found in the skins of dark-skinned grapes. The juice inside most grapes is actually clear. During winemaking, the juice soaks with the grape skins for days or weeks (a process called maceration), extracting those purple-red pigments. The longer the soak, the deeper the colour. As red wine ages, the pigments change chemically, shifting from vibrant purple to garnet to brick-orange.
Astringency is that dry, puckering, mouth-gripping sensation you get from tannic red wines. It's not a taste — it's a physical feeling. Tannins in the wine bind to proteins in your saliva, reducing lubrication and making your mouth feel rough and dry. Think of biting into an unripe banana or drinking very strong black tea. It mellows with ageing and softens dramatically when paired with protein-rich food.
A medium-sweet wine (moelleux in French) falls between off-dry and fully sweet, typically containing 12-45 grams of residual sugar per litre. The sweetness comes from natural grape sugars that weren't fully converted to alcohol. Think Vouvray Moelleux, Jurançon, Coteaux du Layon, or German Spätlese Riesling — wines where sweetness and acidity dance together beautifully.
An oaky wine is one that's been aged in oak barrels, picking up flavours like vanilla, toast, coconut, smoke, and baking spices along the way. The effect ranges from subtle (a whisper of vanilla in the background) to in-your-face (like drinking liquid toasted marshmallow). French oak tends to be more restrained; American oak delivers bolder coconut and vanilla.
A light-bodied wine feels delicate and refreshing in your mouth — think water rather than cream. These wines typically have lower alcohol (9-12.5%), minimal tannins, and a crisp, easygoing personality. Muscadet, Beaujolais, Vinho Verde, and many Rieslings are classic examples. They're brilliant for warm weather, light meals, or when you just want something drinkable without the heft.
AI is transforming every link in the wine chain. In the vineyard, IoT sensors and predictive algorithms optimise irrigation and spot diseases (downy mildew, powdery mildew) 7–10 days before visible symptoms. In the cellar, AI adjusts fermentation in real time. For consumers, recommendation engines on platforms like Vivino and Wine-Searcher analyse preferences across 70+ million users. The wine AgTech market is projected at $3.2 billion in 2025 (MarketsandMarkets).
Slow Wine is both a philosophy and an annual guide launched in 2010 by Slow Food Editore in Italy. It rates wineries on three criteria: wine quality, environmental stewardship, and connection to terroir. Born from Carlo Petrini's Slow Food movement (which started in 1986 as a protest against a McDonald's opening near Rome's Spanish Steps), Slow Wine champions sustainable farming, controlled yields, and artisanal winemaking over industrial standardisation.
Gen Z — born between 1997 and 2012 — drinks structurally less alcohol than any previous generation. About 20 % identify as non-drinkers (Berenberg Research, 2023). Wine isn't irrelevant to them, but the industry needs to adapt: smaller formats (25 cl, cans), authentic digital storytelling, low-alcohol and zero-alcohol options, and full transparency on ingredients and farming practices.
2026 wine trends: rise of no- and low-alcohol wines, growth of orange wine and pét-nats, alternative formats (cans, BIB), and growing interest in indigenous grapes and under-the-radar terroirs.
E-commerce has reshaped the wine market — growing from 5 % of global sales in 2019 to 12 % in 2024, worth roughly $38 billion (IWSR). The Covid-19 pandemic was the catalyst, but the shift stuck. Online wine retail has democratised access to small producers, popularised subscription models and direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, and made educational content and reviews central to how people choose what to drink.
Yes, CBD-infused wines exist — mostly in the US, where brands like Rebel Coast and House of Saka sell bottles containing 20–40 mg of CBD. In Europe, it's a different story: the EU's Novel Food regulation (2015/2283) restricts adding CBD to food and drink, and no CBD wine is currently approved for sale as 'wine' within the EU.
'Drink Less, Drink Better' is a consumer trend where people cut back on how much they drink but spend more on quality when they do. It started gaining traction in the mid-2010s, mainly in the UK and US, and it's now a defining force in European wine. IWSR's 2024 data shows the premium-plus segment (above €10 per bottle) growing at 5 % annually in Europe, even as overall wine consumption drops 2 % per year since 2019.
Tetra Pak wine is a smart choice for the planet and for everyday drinking — but it has real limits. The carton format is 80 % lighter than glass, slashes transport emissions by 40–50 %, and keeps wine fresh for 12 months unopened. It works brilliantly for everyday wines under €8 per litre. For complex or age-worthy bottles, though, glass still wins. In Scandinavia, Tetra Pak already accounts for over 40 % of wine sales by volume.
A low-alcohol wine contains between 0.5 % and 10 % ABV, compared to 12-15 % for a standard wine. The category includes naturally light wines and partially dealcoholised wines.
Millennials — born between 1981 and 1996 — gravitate toward natural wine for three big reasons: they want transparency about what's in their glass, they care about environmental impact (organic and biodynamic farming ticks that box), and they prefer the relaxed, unpretentious culture around natural wine over traditional wine snobbery. Wine Intelligence reported in 2024 that 38 % of European millennials actively seek out natural or low-intervention wines.
Wine NFTs are unique digital certificates stored on a blockchain that prove who owns a bottle, confirm it's genuine, and track its full history. You buy a digital token linked to a real, physical bottle kept in professional storage. It's a powerful tool against counterfeiting — which affects an estimated 20 % of fine wine sales according to Wine Spectator — and makes reselling on secondary markets far more transparent.
Wine on tap means serving wine from stainless-steel kegs (10–30 litres) through a draught system pressurised with inert gas — nitrogen or a nitrogen/CO₂ blend. Over 3,500 US restaurants used the format in 2024. It cuts the carbon footprint by roughly 40 % compared to glass bottles and keeps wine fresh for 4–6 weeks once tapped.
Yes, blue wine is a real thing — though calling it 'wine' is legally tricky in the EU. The blue colour comes either from anthocyanin-rich grape varieties (like Alicante Bouschet) or from adding indigo dye (E132) to white wine. Spanish brand Gïk launched the first commercial blue wine in 2015, and it sparked a massive debate about what counts as wine and what's just a wine-based drink.