Follow Wine Lover’s Companion (Sharon Tyler Herbst) for spelling and capitalization of wine names. In general, wine names derived from proper nouns, such as Bordeaux and Champagne, are capped; generic and descriptive wine names, such as dessert wine and rosé, are lowercase.
Below are the proper spellings for some common wines.
Armagnac (a brandy)
Asti
Spumante
Auslese
Bardolino
Barolo
Beaujolais
Beaune
blanc de blanc ("white wine from white grapes")
blanc de noir ("white wine from red grapes"; sometimes called blush or rosé)
Blanc de Pinot Noir
blush
Bordeaux
brandy
Burgundy
Cabernet Blanc
Cabernet Franc
Cabernet
Sauvignon
Calvados (a brandy)
Chablis
Chambertin
Champagne
(use
Champagne
only
when
referring
specifically
to
a
French
product)
Chardonnay
Châteauneuf-du-Pape
Chenin
Blanc
Chianti
claret
Cognac (a brandy)
cold duck
Colombard/French Colombard
Corton
Côtes
du
Rhône
demi-sec
fino (a sherry)
Gewürztraminer
Graves
Johannisberg Riesling
Lambrusco
late-harvest
wines
Liebfraumilch
Madeira/madeira (cap only when referring to the product of Portugal's madeira island; otherwise lowercase)
Malbec
manzanilla (a sherry)
Marsala
May wine (actually a punch made with wine)
Merlot
Meursault
mirin (a Japanese rice wine)
Muscadet
Muscat
oloroso (a sherry)
Petite Sirah
Pinot
Blanc
Pinot Gris
Pinot
Noir
Pommard
port
Pouilly-Fuissé
retsina
rice
wine
Riesling
Romanée-Conti
rosé
sake (a Japanese rice wine)
Sangiovese
sangría
sauterne (a generic name for inexpensive California white wines)
Sauternes (a sweet dessert wine from France)
Sauvignon
Blanc
Sémillon
sherry
Shiraz (what Syrah is called in Australia)
sparkling wine
Spätlese
spumante (pl. spumanti)
Sylvaner
Syrah
Tokay
Valpolicella
varietal wine (a wine that uses the name of the dominant grape from which it's made, such as Chardonnay)
Viognier
Vouvray
White Zinfandel (a blush wine)
Zinfandel (a red wine)
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