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)
Cava (Cava refers specifically to the Spanish product; otherwise call for cava or sparkling wine) (added 9/19/17)
Chablis
Chambertin
Champagne (Champagne refers specifically to the French product; otherwise call for champagne or sparkling wine) (updated 9/19/17)
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 Grigio
Pinot Gris
Pinot Noir
Pommard
port
Pouilly-Fuissé
Prosecco
retsina
rice wine
Riesling
Rioja
Romanée-Conti
rosé
sake (a Japanese rice wine)
Sangiovese
sangría
sauterne (a generic name for inexpensive California white wines) (use sparingly to avoid confusion with Sauternes)
Sauternes (a sweet dessert wine from France) (singular and plural)
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)
vin santo
Viognier
Vouvray
White Zinfandel (a blush wine)
Zinfandel (a red wine)
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