Cuvée is a term that appears on many wine labels but can have multiple meanings. One, commonly used in sparkling wine production, refers to the early stages of extracting juice from grapes.
Also referred to as “free-run” juice, this first press is often the purest. It has fewer phenolics, higher acidity and lower pH. The more you press, the more phenolics there are, and the heavier, more ‘pressier,’ the juice gets.
Those bitter, phenolic compounds and the weightiness that comes with later presses are usually less desirable in a classically delicate sparkling wine, like those crafted in the Champagne tradition.
U.S. producers use the term cuvée some…but usually they just say "free-run juice," or "first cut.” Cuvée is used more in French sparkling houses. However, the French term has multiple meanings that can become confusing.
Cuvée can also be a term synonymous with “blend.” There’s no legal definition in either the U.S. or France, so cuvée can stand in for any kind of combination in wine—vineyards, vintages or varieties. One California vinter does single vineyard wines, but off that vineyard they have both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, so that can still be a cuvée.
The process of blending can be one of the most important parts of winemaking. You can have an A+ lot, but there will be a block that can go in with that and round it out, add something extra, make it even better. The goal: to create a blend, or cuvée, whose sum is greater than its component parts.
In France different Champagne houses sometimes refer to their best blends within the larger cuvée designation by even more specific terms, like tete de cuvée, prestige cuvée and grande cuvée.
Even in France, when we literally try to translate the word, it comes out different in different places. The bottom line is that sometimes, wine just isn’t that simple.
