Wine 101: Wine, Explained Well

Prosecco col fondo is Prosecco that finishes fermenting inside the bottle it is sold in and keeps its lees, the yeast left behind by fermentation. The name is Veneto dialect for "with the bottom," meaning the sediment in the base of the bottle. It is dry and cloudy, and most of it is lightly sparkling.

Orange wine is white wine made the way red wine is made. The juice ferments together with the grape skins for days, weeks or months, and the skins give it an amber color, tannin and more texture than a white wine has. Good first bottles are Gulp Hablo Orange and Field Recordings Skins; for more structure, Radikon and Denavolo; for the oldest version of the style, a qvevri amber wine from Georgia.

Soil affects wine through the water, warmth and nutrients it gives the vine. The grapes do not take on the taste of the minerals in the soil. This guide covers nine soil types, from limestone and clay to slate and volcanic rock, and the wines grown on each.

Sulfites are sulfur dioxide and its salts, used in wine as a preservative against oxidation and unwanted microbes. Every wine contains some, because yeast produces sulfites during fermentation, so sulfite-free wine does not exist. EU law caps total sulfur dioxide at 150 mg/l for dry red and 200 mg/l for dry white and rosé; US law caps it at 350 ppm for every style, and requires a “contains sulfites” declaration above 10 ppm. Sulfite sensitivity is real but presents as asthma, not as a headache.

Natural wine is made from organically or biodynamically farmed grapes and fermented with native yeast, with nothing added in the cellar except, at most, a small dose of sulfites. No law defines it.

Rosé is wine made from red grapes whose skins stay in the juice for a short time, often a few hours. How it is made, what EU law says and how to serve it.