In this article I am going to tell you everything about wine labels used here in the Czech Republic. I hope, it will help you to better understand what kind of wine you are buying.
The front label
The name of winery – it is usually at the front and back label too. It is not always at the top of the wine label. Winery – in Czech “Vinařství” – can be a good indicator of wine quality latter, if you get more familiar with our wines.
The name of product line – it may not be used every time. But can idicate to you, that the winery is focused in more product lines that can vary in the quality.
The name of variety – our wines are usually made only from one variety. If you remember which variety is your favourite, it could help you with your future choice. But be wary, it does not mean that for example each Tramín červený (Gewürztraminer) will be of the same quality. It also depends on other following things.
Wine region – in case, the wine is of higher quality, it is compulsory to identify the wine region (and more issues connected with a place on the back label). Read more in our Wine region article.
Grape ripeness – an important indicator of wine quality. It reflects the ripeness of grapes during harvest time. Again it is better explained here.
Vintage – it shows, in which year the grapes were harvested. Majority of our wines is prepared to be drunk fresh, not longer then 5 years after harvesting. Only small part deserves cellaring.
Classification according to the residual sugar – this indicator shows, if the wine is dry or sweet. It is not allowed to add any sugar into high quality wines in the Czech republic. So we are talking about natural sugar, which has been left in wine during wine making process.
The right Czech terms
suché – dry
polosuché – semidry
polosladké – semisweet
sladké – sweet
The back label
On the back label, there is more info. I will explain only the new and unclear.
Wine regions – it is “complete adress” of grapes from which the wine was produced. According to Czech laws all high quality wines – wines with special attributes (Víno s přívlastkem) – must have this identification. There is the name of wine village and also the name of single vineyard.
Description – this is usually complete description of the colour, aroma and flavours of wine mostly completed also with reccomendation of wine and food pairing.
Filled in – it can also help you to identify, if the wine is really from the Czech Republic. Check if the adress sound Czech.
Classification – here is again the overall classification of the wine – the translation of the label is: quality wine with special attribute – selected harvest, 2015, semidry
Analytics – you can see all important analytics values of the wine – residual sugar, acids, batch number and the quality registration number.
Allergens – all allergens must be listed on the label. The most common in wine could be sulphur, eggs products and milk products (because they are used for stabilization and clarification of the wine).
Usually there is web page somewhere on the label. So I can recommend you to watch also the web of the winery, because some wineries can also have English web pages and you can find there more info.
So I hope, this article would be useful for you and from now you will enjoy only more high quality Moravian wine.