I’ve grumbled in the past about the mystifying way that French wines are labeled, not with what’s in the bottle, but with where it grows. Think about trying to buy cheese at the grocery store if all the labels just said Wisconsin. Well, there is hope for a least some of the French, albeit a very, very few of them; those in the Alsace. Alsatian wines vary with terroir as much as Bordeaux or Champagne but, probably because of their history with Germany, the Alsatians treat terroir as secondary; at least on their labels. The region’s three principal grape varieties are Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer.

During the 17th century, after the Thirty Years’ War, Alsace was ceded to France, making it French for the first time. It remained a disputed territory between France and Germany for the next 300 years, changing countries four times before reverting to France at the end of World War II. The names of terroirs, grapes and towns in Alsace often sound more German than French, like Strasbourg and Gewurztraminer. Many wine drinkers, including the French who live outside Alsace, are confused by the un-French wine names, the region’s tall, German-like wine bottles, and varietal names like Riesling and Gewurztraminer that are shared with Germany.

Botrytis cinerea. Just sounds kind of gross, doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled. While botrytis can be a destructive pest to almost any form of plant or fruit, under the right circumstances in the vineyard it is an instrumental tool in creating the most wonderful dessert wines. Sauternes from France, Tokaji from Hungary, stickies from Australia, just about every wine producing country in the world makes a botrytis-affected wine. Sweet and spicy, decadent and sublime, poetic and indescribable, botrytised wines can last for decades or more, their virtues evolving and maturing to a point where the words “liquid gold” may be an understated description.

Botrytis cinerea, or Noble Rot as it is called in wine parlance, is a mold that attacks the grape only under very specific circumstances. Alternating periods of dampness from rain, fog or mists must be balanced with periods of sunshine and dryness for the mold to truly take hold. Too much water and grey rot develops, a destructive form of the mold that kills the grapes. Too little water and no mold will form. It is in this balance that Botrytis works its magic. The mold shrivels the grapes, concentrating the sugars, acids and flavors. From this very little juice flows, so production is very low. But what does come is a delicious, unctuous nectar that through fermentation releases a golden, honeyed wine full of complexity and delicacy.

Ever wonder what happened to Chablis? If you’re not at least fifty years old, you probably don’t understand the question. But, for the rest of us, we used to drink a lot of Chablis back in the day. Chablis was generic for white wine. We would ask for a glass of Chablis and not care what we got, as long as it was white. Well it turns out that Chablis didn’t go anywhere. Its alive and well in a small town in France. No I’m not talking about Remulak where the SNL Cone Heads came from, but about the small town of Chablis.So what happened? In the early days of American wine, the name Chablis was appropriated by giant producers like Gallo for their cheap, white jug wines. Chablis became generic. We would ask for a glass of Chablis when what we meant was “white wine.” As the American wine industry matured and Americans leaned to distinguish one white wine from another, the generic use of the term Chablis began to fade. Today most of us never hear the term, but the people in that small town in France would like to change that.

From time to time I’ll take a few of the most used and misused wine terms and try to make they a little more understandable. In this column we’re only going to tackle five such terms, but they are five that I think are widely misunderstood.

Dry: I think “dry” is one of the most misunderstood terms used by wine drinkers. Dry is simply the absence of sugar (sweetness). When wines are fermented, the sugar in them is converted to alcohol. If most of the sugar is converted in this way, the wine is left dry. Dryness is not sourness, that’s acidity, nor is it astringency, that is caused by tannins. Many people say they don’t like dry wines, when in fact what they don’t like are acidic or tannic wines. Personally, I’m not a fan of sweet drinks. In general, I don’t care for sweet soft drinks, sugar in my tea or coffee or sweet wines (accept desert wines). I know a lot of people with similar tastes who also say they don’t like dry wines. In most cases I find that it’s actually not the dryness they dislike, it’s either the acidity or the tannins that bother them.