Wine terms for restaurant teams: tasting words, label law, service and pricing, defined

Wine terms are the shared vocabulary that lets a restaurant describe, label, serve and price wine consistently. For a restaurant team, they fall into four groups: tasting words that end up in menu descriptions, label terms that carry legal rules, service words guests use at the table, and pricing terms such as BTG and pour size.

Most wine glossaries are written for a guest who wants to sound confident. This one is written for the person who writes the list, trains the floor team and pays the invoice, which means it cares about two things guest glossaries skip: which label words are actually regulated, and what a glass really costs you. Corkage and BYOB rules are covered separately in our bar drink terminology guide, so they are not repeated here.

What are the wine terms every restaurant team needs?

A restaurant team needs roughly twenty wine terms to write an accurate list and answer most guest questions: five or six tasting words, the main style and grape terms, the regulated label terms in the US and EU, a handful of service words, and the pricing vocabulary of pours and markups. Everything beyond that is a specialist layer for the sommelier.

The practical test for each term in this guide is simple: would a server need it to answer a guest, or would the person writing the list need it to avoid an inaccurate claim? If neither, it is left out. That is also why the guide separates terms with a legal definition from terms that are marketing language, because the two look identical on a label and behave very differently when a guest or inspector asks what they mean.

Group	Who uses it	Example terms
Tasting	Menu writer, server	body, acidity, tannin, dry, finish
Style and grape	Everyone	varietal, blend, sparkling, fortified
Label law	Buyer, list writer	AVA, estate bottled, PDO, brut
Service	Floor team	decant, corked, by the glass, half bottle
Pricing	Owner, manager	BTG, pour size, bottle cost, markup

Tasting terms: the words behind a wine-list description

Tasting terms describe how a wine looks, smells and feels in the mouth, and the useful ones for a menu are those a guest can predict from: sweetness, acidity, tannin, body and finish. The Wine & Spirit Education Trust teaches them through its Systematic Approach to Tasting, which rates each on a simple scale.

The WSET Level 2 tasting grid uses short, repeatable scales: sweetness runs dry, off-dry, medium, sweet; acidity, tannin and alcohol run low, medium, high; body runs light, medium, full; finish runs short, medium, long. The value for a restaurant is consistency. If every description on your list uses the same scale, a guest who liked “medium body, high acidity” can find its neighbor without asking.

The same WSET lexicon sorts aromas into three layers, which is a tidy way to write a two-line description: primary aromas come from “the grape and alcoholic fermentation”, secondary from “post-fermentation winemaking” such as oak or lees, and tertiary from “maturation”.

Term	Plain meaning	How to phrase it on a menu
Dry / off-dry	How much sweetness you can taste	“Dry, crisp” or “off-dry, a touch of sweetness”
Acidity	The mouth-watering, refreshing sensation	“Bright acidity, good with fried food”
Tannin	The drying, grippy feel from skins and oak, mostly in reds	“Firm tannins, needs a steak” or “soft tannins”
Body	How heavy the wine feels in the mouth	“Light-bodied” or “full-bodied”
Finish	How long the flavor lasts after swallowing	“Long finish” (use sparingly)
Primary / secondary / tertiary	Fruit and flowers / oak, butter, bread / dried fruit, leather, nuts	“Ripe plum, vanilla from oak”

Keep descriptions to one sensory line and one food line. Guests read the food line first.

Wine styles and grape terms

Style and grape terms tell a guest what kind of wine is in the bottle before any tasting note: whether it is still, sparkling or fortified, whether it is named after one grape or a blend, and roughly where it comes from. These are the terms a wine list is usually organized by, so getting them right shapes the whole layout.

• Varietal: a wine labeled with a grape name, such as Pinot Noir. In the US the grape name carries a legal minimum, covered in the next section.
• Blend: a wine made from more than one grape. Bordeaux reds are a classic example, and the label may name the region rather than the grapes.
• Still, sparkling, fortified: still wine has no bubbles; sparkling wine carries dissolved carbon dioxide; fortified wine, such as port or sherry, has spirit added.
• Old World / New World: informal shorthand for Europe versus the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Useful as a list heading, but it carries no legal meaning and says little about style.
• Vintage / non-vintage: a vintage wine states the harvest year; non-vintage (common in Champagne) blends several years.

A practical layout rule from our bar menu guide applies here too: organize by style first (sparkling, white, rosé, red, sweet), then by body from light to full inside each section. Guests navigate by style, not by country.

Label terms and what the law actually says

US wine label terms such as varietal, appellation, vintage and estate bottled each carry a specific federal rule in 27 CFR Part 4, and the percentages differ from term to term. A wine list that repeats label language inherits those rules, so it helps to know which words are regulated before writing them next to a price.

Label term	What the rule requires	Source
Single grape name (varietal)	At least 75 percent of the wine from that variety, all of that 75 percent grown in the labeled appellation	27 CFR 4.23
Vitis labrusca varietal (e.g. Concord)	At least 51 percent, with a statement of the percentage	27 CFR 4.23
State or county appellation	At least 75 percent from fruit grown in the named area	27 CFR 4.25
American Viticultural Area (AVA)	At least 85 percent from grapes grown within the AVA	27 CFR 4.25
Vintage year	95 percent of the grapes harvested that year with an AVA; 85 percent with other appellations	27 CFR 4.27
Estate bottled	Winery located in the AVA, grew all grapes on land it owns or controls there, and made and bottled the wine “in a continuous process” without it leaving the premises	27 CFR 4.26
Contains sulfites	Required at 10 ppm or more, measured as total sulfur dioxide	TTB
Alcohol content	Tolerance of 1 percentage point above 14 percent ABV, 1.5 points at or below 14 percent	27 CFR 4.36

Two practical points follow. First, “estate bottled” is the strictest of these and the most often misused in menu copy; if the label does not say it, the list should not either. Second, the TTB’s varietal guidance is a useful plain-English reference to hand a new buyer.

What about “Reserve” or “Old Vine”? These terms did not appear in the federal rules and TTB guidance pages we checked. Treat them as the producer’s own wording, quote them exactly as printed, and do not explain them to guests as a quality grade.

European appellation terms: AOC, DOC, DOCG, PDO, PGI

European wine labels use a two-level origin system: Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) for the strictest regional wines and Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) for broader regional wines. Each country also prints its own national names for these categories, which is where AOC, DOC and DOCG come from.

The European Commission sets the core difference: for a PDO wine, “the grapes have to come exclusively from the geographical area where the wine is made”, while for a PGI wine “at least 85% of the grapes used have to come exclusively from the geographical area”. France’s INAO presents AOC as the French name for PDO. In Italy, Law 238/2016, article 28 classifies Italian PDO wines into DOCG and DOC.

Some ageing words are regulated too, but by the regional body rather than the label law. Rioja’s classification is a good example for a list writer:

Rioja term (red)	Minimum ageing
Crianza	Two years, at least one in 225-liter oak barrels
Reserva	Three years between barrel and bottle, at least one in barrel
Gran Reserva	Five years, two in barrel and two in bottle

So “Reserva” on a Rioja means something specific, while “Reserve” on a US label may not. The list should not imply the two are equivalent.

Sparkling wine sweetness terms

Sparkling wine sweetness terms are defined by sugar content in grams per liter under EU Regulation 2019/33, Annex III, and they are one of the most confusing parts of any list because “extra dry” is sweeter than “brut”. The bands below are from the regulation as adopted.

Term on the label	Sugar content
Brut nature (also pas dosé, dosage zéro)	Less than 3 g/L, no sugar added after the secondary fermentation
Extra brut	0 to 6 g/L
Brut	Less than 12 g/L
Extra dry	12 to 17 g/L
Sec / dry	17 to 32 g/L
Demi-sec / medium dry	32 to 50 g/L
Doux / sweet	More than 50 g/L

If a guest asks for “something dry and sparkling”, brut or extra brut is the answer, not extra dry. Writing the band next to the term on the list (“Extra dry, gently sweet”) saves the conversation.

Service terms: decant, corked, by the glass, half bottle

Service terms are the words guests and servers use at the table: decanting, letting a wine breathe, a corked bottle, wine by the glass, and bottle formats. They matter because each one implies an action the floor team must be trained to perform, and a guest who says “this is corked” expects a specific response.

• Decant: pouring wine from the bottle into a separate vessel, either to leave sediment behind in older reds or to aerate a young wine. Make it a house rule which wines get decanted and who does it.
• Breathe: exposing wine to air, usually through decanting or swirling.
• Corked: a wine fault, usually smelling of damp cardboard or a musty cellar. It is a reason to replace the bottle. A wine the guest simply dislikes is not corked, and the house policy for each case should be written down.
• By the glass (BTG): wine sold in single pours from an opened bottle. The section on pricing below covers the math.
• Preservation systems: devices such as Coravin pour through the cork with a needle and argon. The manufacturer says its Pivot system keeps the remaining wine “fresh for up to four weeks”; that is a vendor claim, not an independent test.

US standard bottle sizes are fixed by 27 CFR 4.72. Here is what each one pours at 5 ounces:

Bottle size	US fluid ounces	5-oz glasses (our calculation)
187 ml	6.3	1.3
375 ml (half bottle)	12.7	2.5
750 ml (standard)	25.4	5.1
1 liter	33.8	6.8
1.5 liters	50.7	10.1
2.25 liters	76.1	15.2
3 liters	101.4	20.3

Wine-list and pricing terms: BTG, pour size, bottle cost, markup

Wine pricing terms describe how a restaurant turns a bottle invoice into menu prices: the pour size, the cost per glass, the target cost percentage and the resulting markup. A by-the-glass price is the bottle cost divided by the glasses poured, then divided by the target cost percentage you want to run.

Pour size is the first decision. The NIAAA defines one standard drink as about 14 grams of pure alcohol and gives “a 5-ounce glass of wine at 12% alcohol” as the example, which is why 5 ounces is the common US pour. A 750 ml bottle therefore holds about five standard drinks of a 12 percent wine.

Here is the arithmetic with an $18 bottle. The 25 and 30 percent targets are illustrations, not industry benchmarks.

Step	Value (our calculation)
Bottle cost	$18.00
Glasses per bottle at 5 oz	5
Cost per glass	$3.60
Glass price at 30% target cost	$12.00
Glass price at 25% target cost	$14.40
Revenue from 5 glasses at $12	$60.00 (3.3 times bottle cost)
Real cost if only 4 glasses sell before the bottle goes off	$4.50 per glass sold, 37.5% cost at $12

That last row is the one most lists ignore. An open bottle that loses its fifth glass quietly moves the wine program from 30 to 37.5 percent cost. Smaller BTG lists, half bottles, or a preservation system are the usual responses. The general food-and-beverage costing method is covered in our guide on how to price a restaurant menu, and the bottle-side pour cost formula is in our bar drink terminology guide.

Markup is the ratio of menu price to cost: the $12 glass above is a 3.3x markup on the per-glass cost. We found no independent study that establishes a “standard” restaurant wine markup, so treat any single figure you read as one operator’s practice rather than a norm.

Sommelier terms and certification levels

A sommelier is the restaurant’s wine specialist: the person who buys, stores, lists and serves wine and advises guests. Credentials come from private education bodies rather than a government license.

The Court of Master Sommeliers runs four levels: Introductory, Certified, Advanced, and the Master Sommelier Diploma. WSET runs its own numbered levels, with the tasting grid described earlier at Level 2 and above. For a smaller venue without a sommelier, the realistic goal is that one manager can explain every term on your own list, which is a much smaller task than certification.

Our restaurant staff roles guide covers where the sommelier sits in the front-of-house team, and the wider service vocabulary is in the restaurant terms glossary.

How to write a wine list that uses these terms

A good wine list gives every wine the same core facts in the same order: name, producer, region or appellation, vintage, a one-line description using a consistent tasting scale, and the price for each format. Wine Spectator, which runs a restaurant wine list award program, requires entries to “provide vintages, appellations and prices for all selections, including wines by the glass” (Wine Spectator).

A workable line format:

Albariño, [Producer], Rías Baixas, 2024
Dry, high acidity, citrus and sea spray. Good with shellfish.
Glass 5 oz $14 · Bottle $56

Five rules that keep the list accurate:

1. Copy regulated label terms exactly. “Estate bottled”, an AVA name or “Reserva” belong on the list only if they are on the label.
2. Use one tasting scale. Pick the WSET-style words (light, medium, full; low, medium, high) and use nothing else.
3. Put the sweetness band next to sparkling terms. “Extra dry” needs the explanation more than any other word on the list.
4. Show every format’s price, including half bottles and BTG pours, with the pour size.
5. Update vintages when they change. A list showing last year’s vintage is a common accuracy problem, and on paper it is also an expensive one to fix.

For a bistro-style list with wine by the glass and the pichet, our bistro menu guide shows real Paris pricing and the per-glass math. For an Italian list built around DOC and DOCG regions, see the Italian restaurant menu guide.

Putting the wine list on a QR menu

On a digital menu, a wine list is a category like any other, and the main advantage is that vintage changes, a sold-out bottle or a new BTG pour take seconds instead of a reprint. On Duckhub, each wine can carry modifiers for its formats (glass, half bottle, bottle) with separate prices, a wine that runs out can be hidden from the menu until the next delivery, and the list can be shown in several languages for guests who read wine terms in their own.

If you use ChatGPT or Claude, you can connect your own assistant to Duckhub and ask it to draft one-line descriptions in the house tasting scale or translate the list; check every regulated term against the label before you publish. The free Egg plan covers 70 products in 10 categories, which fits most restaurant wine lists, and every plan takes 0% commission on orders.