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While attempting to score wine deals at Costco, you may have come across the term “reserve” on certain wine labels. This essentially implies that the wine has undergone unique aging methods before being made available for purchase. Traditionally, wine makers would hold back some of their best wine to let it mature for a longer period before releasing it. This practice of keeping a reserve of particular wine batches is what led to the term “reserve” we see on modern wine bottles today.

Although “reserve” might hint towards a high-quality wine, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee it. In some parts of wine-producing nations like Italy and Spain, the usage of this term is legally controlled, allowing only wines that meet specific growing, aging, and storing standards to be labelled as such. On the other hand, in many parts of the world, including the United States, the term “reserve” has no legal definition and can be used to label any wine, irrespective of the aging criteria.

In Italy, for a wine to be labeled “reserve” or “riserva”, it must abide by specific aging and storage regulations specific to that region. For instance, a Chianti can only be labelled and sold as a “riserva” if it has undergone at least 24 months of aging, with a mandatory 3 months’ bottle fining. This information can be attributed to an Italian vineyard called Carus.

The process of maturation starts from January 1, after the harvest season. Similar to this, strict regulations are also applied for assessing all kinds of Italian wines which aim for the ‘riserva’ label. After fulfilling the minimum criteria, the wine has to exhibit certain attributes, be it color or acidity. These particular rules ensure that the region exports a high-standard product to the rest of the globe.

Comparable systems are also found in Spain and Portugal, where the specialized wine is labeled as ‘reserva’ (not to be confused with Italy’s ‘riserva’). Similar to Italy, these nations too have split their wine-growing areas into regions with precise requirements governing which wines can legally take up the ‘reserva’ label. Along with storage and aging requirements, Portugal also sets the level of alcohol percentage for its ‘reserva’ bottles. As per an article by renowned wine experts Mike DeSimone and Jeff Jenssen in the Robb Report, Portugal ‘reserva’ wines need to contain 0.5% to 1% more alcohol per bottle compared to their nationally sanctioned regional minimums.

Outside of these regulated regions, the term ‘reserve’ doesn’t have a clear definition and can imply various things, or sometimes, nothing at all. In the United States, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TBB) regulates the wine, but it presently doesn’t have a definition for ‘reserve’. In 2010, the TBB proposed a legal definition for several winemaking terms. However, the proposed rules were never enacted, and so, the term ‘reserve’ continues to be used without a concrete legal definition.

In the absence of any guiding principles from the federal government, some regions have taken the responsibility of setting quality standards into their own hands. In the onset of the century, winemakers in Washington established the Washington Wine Quality Alliance, which defined its own standards for the ‘reserve’ labels. According to an old report by Wine Spectator, members of the alliance decided to limit their ‘reserve’ batches to 10% or less of the total production. Vineyards outside Washington, in the United States, still market certain bottles with the ‘reserve’ label. However, as there is no standard agreement dictating what exactly makes a ‘reserve’ bottle, it is often used as more of a marketing strategy without any legal repercussions.

Read the original article on Daily Meal.