Wine Dictionaries & Glossaries

After many, many hours of searching the internet for informative, and actually useful, online wine dictionaries and glossaries, we have compiled what we think to be a list of some the best and most complete. Sure theres only a few listed, but thats sort of the point isn’t it?

Epicurious Fine Wine Dictionary

This a five star wine dictionary if ever there was one. Conde Nast’s Epicurious.com, which is part of their CondeNet network of sites, is the most complete dictionary that we came across. They boast over 3,500 entries. Entries include not only grape varietals, but also wineries, vineyards, appellations, countries, and technical terminologies. [Epicurious.com]



Wine Spectator Grape Varieties & Glossary

Wine Spectator is one of the most respected wine magazines available. So who better to go to when you need to know something. At Wine Spectator Online there two places to go when looking something up. Those are the Grape Varieties and their Glossary of terms. Although there’s only 34 entries on the grape varietal page, they cover the most common ones. [Wine Spectator]



Vinapedia

Though not actually a “dictionary”, or a glossary for that matter, Vinapedia is a resource in itself. Navigating the site is really simple as well giving it another plus.Lots of usefully information for the novice and experienced alike. [Vinapedia]


Appellation America

Broken down by indexes, Appellation America takes a slightly different approach. The site has indexes for grape varietals, appellations, wineries, as well as wine writers. Their grape varietal index is very unique. They put a twist on the presentation on the information. Instead of just giving you a basic text-book description of each grape (though that is included), each varietal is given human characteristics. [Appellation America]