Typicality

Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

typicality, the original English word for typicity, a wine tasting term adapted from the French typicité or Italian tipicità for a wine’s quality of being typical of its type, geographical provenance, and even its vintage year—a wine characteristic much discussed by professionals. And it is perhaps because typicality is a subjective notion, rather than a physical attribute that can be measured by analysis, that it is so much discussed. Individual tasters are likely to differ as to what they consider typical of a particular wine description, just as they are likely to differ in their impressions of the wine under consideration.