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how do you
like your wine?
brawny: hard and
intense wines with raw, woody flavors
dumb: a
phase young wines undergo when their flavors are
undeveloped
fat:
full-bodied wines that give a "fat" impression on the
palate
herbaceous: wines
with the taste and smell of herbs
meaty:
red wines with plenty of concentration; sometimes with
a slight aroma of cooked meat
rustic: wines
made by old-fashioned methods or tasting like wines made in an
earlier era
toasty: a flavor
derived from the oak barrels in which wines are aged
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archaeobotany - the study of
ancient plant remains, including pollen, seeds, leaves, fruits, etc. to
shed light on the environment of an archaeological site, human land-use,
and diet.
calcium tartrate - the
insoluble calcium salt of tartaric acid, which readily forms in a
calcareous (limestone) geological terrain and accumulates inside ancient
wine vessels.
canonical - established or
authorized.
cylinder seals - incised
cylinders that were rolled over a wet clay tablet or the stopper of a jar;
the designs left on the clay might mark the identity of the owner or the
jar's contents and origins (much like a modern wine bottle
label).
Elam - ancient kingdom of lower
Mesopotamia, located in the lowlands and mountains of the southern Zagros,
at the head of the Persian Gulf.
entrepôt - major center for the exchange of
goods.
fermentation - the conversion of
sugar to alcohol and carbon dioxide by the action of yeast
microorganisms.
in situ - literally, "in
position." In archaeological terminology, it refers to an artifact,
architectural feature or other find that has been excavated or exposed in
its original, ancient context.
Levant -
the region of the Middle East that extends along the Eastern
Mediterranean, including the coastal and inland regions of modern Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza.
Noah
hypothesis - the theory that the wild Eurasian grapevine was taken into
cultivation and eventually developed as our domesticated type in only one
region of the world (e.g., the Caucasus Mountains). The domesticated plant
would then have been transplanted elsewhere—to Greece, Italy and France,
and most recently, California and New Zealand. The hypothesis takes its
name from the patriarch, Noah, who is said to have planted a vineyard on
Mount Ararat after the flood. (Genesis 9).
organic - containing compounds principally made up of
carbon and hydrogen, the building blocks of living
organisms.
pips - another term for the
seeds inside grapes.
psychotropic -
acting on the mind
tartaric acid - the
principal acid of grapes and wine, composed of four carbon, four oxygen
and six hydrogen atoms. It occurs naturally in large amounts only in
grapes.
transplantation - a
horticultural method in which cuttings or roots of a parent plant are
physically moved to another location and re-rooted or grafted to another
plant. In this way, the same genetic clones with desirable characteristics
(whether plant hardiness and disease resistance or fruit size, juiciness
and taste) can be regenerated for thousands of years.
viniculture - the science and art of cultivating,
tending and transplanting grapevines, especially to achieve the best
balance of sugar, acidity, alcohol, and other constituents of the grape in
making wine. Viticulture refers to grape horticulture in general, in which
grapes are selected and cultivated for eating, making raisins,
etc.
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Glossary