Canopy: The leaves and shoots of grapevines.
Cap: The grape skins that float to the top of fermenting red wines, forming a “cap.”
Chais: A French term from Bordeaux for a place where wine in barrels is stored during the period between fermentation and bottling.
Clarify: Refers to the wine-making operation which removes lees - dead yeast cells and fragments of grape skins, stems, seeds and pulp - from grape juice or new wine.
Clone: A sub-group within a variety of genetically identical plants propagated from a single vine to perpetuate selected or special characteristics.
Cold Stabilization: A technique of chilling wines before bottling to cause the precipitation of harmless tartrate crystals.
Complexity: The term used when a wine has multiple flavor and aroma characteristics from the vineyard source, winemaking techniques and/or bottle development.
Corky: An "off" characteristic in wines due to imperfect corks. Often caused by the chemical compound trichloroanisole or TCA, corkiness is believed to come from fungi that are not detectable on dry corks, or by a cork processed with chlorine. TCA diminishes the fruit character of the wine, substituting a character like moldy newspapers or old swimming pool towels.
Diatomaceous Earth: A light, brittle material derived from fossilized microscopic unicellular algae called diatoms, used as a filter in clarifying wine.
Direct-To-Press: Pressing grapes as whole clusters rather than destemming first. The method that we prefer for pressing Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and sparkling wine grapes because the stems act as a pressing agent so less force is needed, and there is less tannic pick-up in the wine.
Diurnal: The lowest temperature point and the highest temperature point of the day represent the diurnal range. Napa Valley has a wide diurnal range with its hot days and cool nights.
DOC: These initials stand for Demoninação de Origem Controlada in Portugal and Denominazione di Origine Controllata in Italy and refer to the controlled appellation wines which are regarded as quality wines by European wine law.
Dry: The absence of a sweet taste sensation.
Dry-fermented: Wine that is fermented until it is dry, meaning that all the sugar is converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide during the fermentation process.