Test your wine knowledge.

All sixty questions

Beginner

1. Most reds you will ever meet are, by colour...
   Answer

   Ruby. Most young reds sit in the ruby band. Purple shows with deeply coloured grapes and strong extraction; garnet and tawny come with age.

2. A red wine with some age on it shifts towards...
   Answer

   Garnet. With age a red loses colour at the rim and moves to garnet, then tawny; whites go the other way, deepening to gold.

3. Which wine belongs in a flute?
   Answer

   Sparkling wine. The narrow glass keeps the bubbles, though plenty of pros now pour good fizz in a white wine glass for the aromas.

4. Which style is served warmest?
   Answer

   A full-bodied red. Around 15 to 18°C, slightly below room temperature. Most rooms are warmer than the wine would like.

5. Which of these should be served coldest?
   Answer

   Champagne. Bubbles like it cold, around 6 to 8°C. Whites next, light reds cool, big reds just below room temperature.

6. Those famous legs running down the inside of the glass are telling you...
   Answer

   Mostly the alcohol level. Legs signal alcohol and sugar, not quality. Judge the wine, not the physics.

7. A screwcap on the bottle means...
   Answer

   A closure chosen for very low taint risk. Some of the world's finest Rieslings wear screwcaps. Cork taint ruins roughly one bottle in thirty; some producers simply opt out.

8. That grippy, drying feeling on your gums after a sip of young red. What is it?
   Answer

   Tannin, the wine's ageing clock. Tannin comes from skins and seeds. Structure now, longevity later: the grip softens as the wine matures.

9. Which of these is a genuine wine fault?
   Answer

   A whiff of damp cardboard. Damp cardboard is cork taint. Crystals and sediment are harmless and deep gold is just age. Taste before you accuse.

10. Spicy food burns hardest against a wine that is...
    Answer

    High in alcohol. Alcohol amplifies chilli heat. With spice, go lighter, cooler and even a touch sweet.

11. With dessert, the wine should be...
    Answer

    Sweeter than the dish. A dry wine next to dessert tastes thin and sour. The wine must out-sweeten the plate.

12. Salty food generally makes wine taste...
    Answer

    Softer and fruitier. Salt flatters wine, softening acidity and bitterness. Hence jamón with fino, oysters with Chablis.

13. The ideal place to keep wine is...
    Answer

    Somewhere cool, dark and steady. Heat, light and temperature swings are the enemies. A steady 12 to 14°C in the dark wins every time.

14. You swirl, you sniff and the Champagne smells like a bakery at seven in the morning. What put the bread there?
    Answer

    Years resting on spent yeast in the bottle. Lees ageing. The longer a traditional-method sparkling rests on its spent yeast, the more brioche you get. Delicious science.

15. On a Champagne label, brut means...
    Answer

    Dry. Brut is the dry standard. Demi-sec, confusingly, is sweeter than brut, not drier.

16. Rosé gets its colour from...
    Answer

    Brief contact with black grape skins. A few hours on the skins, then off. Blending red into white is actually banned for still rosé in most of Europe; Champagne is the exception.

17. You decant a very old red mainly to...
    Answer

    Separate it from its sediment. Old bottles throw harmless sediment; pour gently against a light. Young reds get decanted for air instead.

18. Chablis, the wine people order when they say they do not like Chardonnay, is made from...
    Answer

    Chardonnay, one hundred percent. Every drop. Cool climate and little new oak: same grape, different postcode.

19. Which grape is NOT allowed in Champagne?
    Answer

    Pinot Grigio. The big three are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier. Pinot Grigio stays in Italy.

20. The fastest proper way to chill a bottle?
    Answer

    A bucket of ice and water. Water makes full contact with the glass; ice alone mostly hugs air. Twenty minutes and you are there.

Advanced

1. In which region is Grand Cru a strictly ranked vineyard rather than a generously available label term?
   Answer

   Burgundy. In Burgundy, Grand Cru ranks the dirt itself, a sliver of the vineyard area. Elsewhere the words can be far easier to earn. Read the region before the romance.

2. Sherry, one of the world's great wines, comes from...
   Answer

   Andalusia. Jerez, in Andalusia. Living flor, old soleras, criminally underpriced.

3. How do the vineyards above Ronda make fresh, vivid reds despite the Andalusian heat?
   Answer

   Altitude: cold nights preserve acidity. At nine hundred metres the nights turn cold and cold nights keep acidity alive. Altitude is Andalusia's quiet superpower.

4. Sauternes gets its honeyed sweetness from...
   Answer

   A fungus politely called noble rot. Botrytis shrivels each berry on the vine and pickers pass row by row, berry by berry. The most labour-intensive wine on any table and usually the most underpriced.

5. A grower Champagne from a village nobody has heard of often costs half the price of a grande marque. The gap is mostly...
   Answer

   Marketing budgets and brand. You are frequently paying for the advertising. Farmers who bottle their own fruit are some of the best value in fizz.

6. An older vintage is always the better buy.
   Answer

   False: every wine has a drinking window. Wines have drinking windows, not immortality. Most bottles made today are best within five years; the skill is knowing which are not.

7. Dinner is in an hour and your young, serious red is closed tight. Decanting will...
   Answer

   Aerate it so the aromas open sooner. Oxygen fast-forwards a stubborn young red. Old bottles get decanted gently and for a different reason: the sediment.

8. Premier Cru in Burgundy legally ranks...
   Answer

   The vineyard itself. Monks started ranking this dirt centuries ago. The name on the label matters; the plot it comes from matters more.

9. The Left Bank of Bordeaux is famous for wines led by...
   Answer

   Cabernet Sauvignon. The gravel banks of the Médoc ripen Cabernet. Cross the water to Pomerol and Saint-Émilion and Merlot takes over.

10. Which river splits Bordeaux into a Left and a Right Bank?
    Answer

    The Gironde. The Gironde estuary. Left Bank means Cabernet and the 1855 crus; Right Bank means Merlot and Cabernet Franc.

11. Beaujolais is made from...
    Answer

    Gamay. Gamay, often by semi-carbonic maceration, which is where all that juicy cherry fruit comes from. The ten crus, Fleurie to Morgon, are the serious end.

12. The grape of Côte-Rôtie and Hermitage is...
    Answer

    Syrah. The Northern Rhône is Syrah country: violets, black olive and, yes, bacon fat.

13. Châteauneuf-du-Pape reds are usually built on...
    Answer

    Grenache. Grenache leads, with up to thirteen varieties permitted. Warm, spicy and generous.

14. Sancerre is made from...
    Answer

    Sauvignon Blanc. Loire Sauvignon at its most mineral. Pouilly-Fumé faces it across the river; Pouilly-Fuissé, confusingly, is Chardonnay from Burgundy.

15. Prosecco gets its bubbles from...
    Answer

    The tank method. The tank method keeps Glera's pear-and-blossom freshness. Bottle fermentation is what builds Champagne's bread and biscuit.

16. Cava is made by...
    Answer

    The traditional bottle method. Same method as Champagne, Spanish grapes, friendlier prices. Pound for pound, Europe's best-value bubbles.

17. Rioja's backbone grape is...
    Answer

    Tempranillo. Tempranillo, classically softened in American and French oak. Crianza, Reserva and Gran Reserva mark rising ageing.

18. Gran Reserva on a Spanish label tells you about...
    Answer

    Ageing time before release. Spain ranks patience, not plots: Gran Reserva reds spend years in oak and bottle before you ever see them.

19. Albariño's home is...
    Answer

    Rías Baixas. Green, Atlantic Galicia. Saline, citrus whites built for shellfish.

20. Amarone gets its power from...
    Answer

    Drying the grapes before fermenting. Appassimento: Corvina grapes dried for months, then fermented dry. Ripasso is Valpolicella refermented on Amarone's skins, the clever middle path.

Expert

1. Order Germany's Prädikat ladder from least to most ripe:
   Answer

   Kabinett, Spätlese, Auslese, Beerenauslese. Ripeness at harvest sets the ladder, not sweetness in the glass. Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein sit above it.

2. Eiswein is made from grapes that were...
   Answer

   Frozen on the vine. Picked and pressed frozen: the water stays behind as ice and pure concentrated juice runs off. Brutal farming, glorious wine.

3. Trocken on a German label means...
   Answer

   Dry. Trocken is dry, halbtrocken half-dry. Nothing to do with the ripeness ladder, which trips up almost everyone.

4. Fino Sherry stays pale and bone dry thanks to...
   Answer

   Flor, a living veil of yeast. Fortified to about 15%, low enough for flor to live on the wine's surface and shield it from air. At 17% flor dies and Oloroso's oxidative road begins.

5. An Amontillado is best described as...
   Answer

   A Fino that lost its flor and kept ageing in air. It starts under flor, then ages oxidatively: nutty, saline, somewhere between two worlds.

6. The solera system is essentially...
   Answer

   Fractional blending across many years. Young wine refreshes old down the rows, so the bottle you buy is a living average of decades.

7. Pedro Ximénez sherry gets its sweetness from...
   Answer

   Sun-dried grapes. Grapes raisined under the Andalusian sun. Pour it over vanilla ice cream and send us a thank-you note.

8. Vintage Port is...
   Answer

   Declared only in exceptional years. Houses declare perhaps a few vintages a decade. It ages for decades in bottle, throws heavy sediment and must be decanted.

9. A 20-Year Tawny's number refers to...
   Answer

   An average age of the blend in wood. An average age in barrel, not a birthday. The oxidative years build caramel, walnut and dried fruit.

10. Madeira's production famously involves...
    Answer

    Deliberate heating. Warmed and oxidised on purpose, which makes it nearly indestructible. An open bottle laughs at months on the shelf.

11. Barolo is one hundred percent...
    Answer

    Nebbiolo. Nebbiolo: pale colour, ferocious tannin, roses and tar. Barbaresco is its marginally gentler neighbour.

12. Brunello di Montalcino is made from...
    Answer

    Sangiovese. Pure Sangiovese. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano is Sangiovese too; Montepulciano d'Abruzzo is a different grape wearing a confusing name.

13. Etna Rosso's signature grape is...
    Answer

    Nerello Mascalese. Grown high on a live volcano, often from ancient vines. Sicily's answer to Burgundy.

14. Priorat's famous slate soil is called...
    Answer

    Llicorella. Old Garnacha and Cariñena rooted in llicorella slate: tiny yields, concentrated reds and with Rioja one of Spain's only two DOCa regions.

15. Coonawarra Cabernet owes its fame to...
    Answer

    Terra rossa soil. A narrow strip of iron-red loam over limestone, source of Australia's most cedar-and-mint Cabernet.

16. Condrieu is the home slope of...
    Answer

    Viognier. Viognier at full apricot-and-blossom volume. Nearly extinct in the 1960s, now imitated everywhere.

17. Minimum lees ageing for a non-vintage Champagne?
    Answer

    Twelve months. Twelve months on lees, fifteen in total before release; vintage waits three years. Serious houses go far longer.

18. Blanc de Noirs is...
    Answer

    White wine from black grapes. Pinot Noir and Meunier pressed gently, skins left behind. Blanc de Blancs is the all-Chardonnay mirror image.

19. On a Tokaji label, puttonyos measures...
    Answer

    The sweetness level. Historically the baskets of botrytised aszú berries added per barrel. Furmint is the grape, Hungary the home.

20. Served blind, guests often rank a 30 euro mountain red above a 120 euro classed growth. The lesson?
    Answer

    Price and pleasure are loosely correlated: taste blind before you buy. The gap between what a wine costs and what it delivers is where the fun lives. It is also the whole point of our blind evenings.