Vintage, in winemaking, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product (see Harvest (wine)). A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily,
Alcoholic beverages were made by indigenous peoples of the Americas before the Age of Discovery. Indigenous peoples are known to have used maize, potatoes, quinua, pepper tree fruits and strawberries to make alcoholic beverages. Despite the existence of species of the vitis genus (to which Vitis vinifera belongs) in Venezuela, Colombia, Central America and Mexico indigenous peoples did not ferment these species and therefore did not make wine.
Great wines taste like they come from somewhere. Lesser wines taste interchangeable; they could come from anywhere. You can’t fake somewhereness. You can’t manufacture it … but when you taste a wine that has it, you know.
Fruit wines are fermented alcoholic beverages made from a variety of base ingredients (other than grapes); they may also have additional flavors taken from fruits, flowers, and herbs. This definition
Wine is regulated by regional, state, and local laws. The laws and their relative rigidity differ for New World and Old World wines. Old World wines tend to have more stringent regulations than New World wines. Various wine laws, however, may include appellation-based regulations that cover boundaries as well as permitted grape varieties and winemaking practice-such as the French Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), Italian Denominazione di origine controllata (DOC), Spanish Denominación de Origen (DO) and Portuguese Denominação de Origem Controlada (DOC). In some New World wine regions, such as the United States and Australia, the wine laws of the appellation systems (American Viticultural Area (AVA) and Australian Geographical Indication (GIs)) only pertain to boundary specifics and guaranteeing that a certain percentage of grapes come from the area listed on the wine label.