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Handy tips for how to understand what you're reading on a wine bottle label!

Picking a good bottle of wine can be intimidating. Whether it's in a shop, off license or restaurant here's how to understand what you're reading on the label: 

• Country and region.
  Most wine labels will showcase the produce's country of origin, either at the top or the bottom of the label. The region will indicate where the grapes were sourced. 
  The good rule of thumb is that the more specific the location label, the most expensive the wine is likely to be and the better it will be. 
• Name and/or producer. 
  The producer name is either obvious or in small text at the top or the bottom of the label (such as many French wine label examples). This is who made the wine.
• Variety. This refers to the variety of grape that is used in the wine and whether the wine is from a single variety or a blend of two or more varieties. Many blends will not reveal the specific grapes or what percentage each makes up. If there is no varietal given, look for the Appellation, which can give you clues to what varietals were used based on the rules governing that specific region. There are 15 nations with officially regulated appellations, though the strictness of the rules and what matters varies wildly among them 
• Vintage or non-vintage. This refers to the year that the grapes were harvested. This can indicate a lot about the wine, if you know about specific vintage variations. A good vintage has many factors buit one of the main ones would be weather as this plays a huge role in the quality of the grapes and therefore the quality of the wine that is produced. 
• Alcohol level or ABV. 
  

  Low:	below 11% ABV
  Medium:	11-13.9% ABV
  High:	14% ABV and above

   

• Sulfites. These are a natural product of the alcoholic fermentation. Any bottle of wine containing over 10 mg/l (10 parts per million) sulfites is required to bear “CONTAINS SULFITES” on the label. In other words, as no  wine cannot naturally contain less than 15-20 mg/l sulfites when bottled, all bottles of wine must actually bear that sentence.