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144 free Wine trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
100 free wine trivia questions with answers. Are you a wine connoisseur or just getting started on your wine journey? Our 144-question wine trivia quiz will test your knowledge across grape varieties, wine regions, production methods, and wine history. Whether you're a casual wine drinker or a serious enthusiast, this quiz offers an engaging way to challenge yourself and discover fascinating facts about the world's favorite beverage.
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Q 01Which sweet-wine estate was the only 'Premier Cru Supérieur' in the 1855 Bordeaux classification?
Château d'Yquem
Château d'Yquem alone was ranked Premier Cru Supérieur in 1855; when a harvest falls short it sells no wine under its own name at all, as it did with the whole 2012 crop.
Q 02Which French term treats a wine's months between fermentation and bottling like a child's upbringing?
Élevage
Élevage, French for 'raising', is also the word French farmers use for rearing livestock; in the cellar it covers the barrel ageing and filtering between fermentation and bottling.
Q 03Which widow at the head of a sparkling-wine house is credited with inventing the riddling table?
Madame Clicquot
Madame Clicquot (Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin), widowed at 27, devised the riddling table in the early 1800s: bottles rest neck-down and are turned until the sediment slides to the cork for removal.
Q 04Which grape variety is the principal component of Chianti, the classic red of Tuscany?
Sangiovese
Sangiovese is the backbone of Chianti: producers were once obliged to blend in white grapes, but an all-Sangiovese wine has been legal since the 1990s and Chianti Classico banned white grapes in 2006.
Q 05Wines from which region beat top French bottles in both red and white at the 1976 'Judgment of Paris' tasting?
Napa County
Napa County supplied both winners, Stag's Leap's 1973 Cabernet and Chateau Montelena's 1973 Chardonnay; the judges were French and tasted blind, and one, Odette Kahn, demanded her scorecard back.
Q 06Which renowned sweet white wine of Bordeaux is made from grapes shrivelled by a beneficial mould?
Sauternes
Sauternes owes its mould to autumn mists that form where the cool Ciron meets the warmer Garonne; the afternoon sun then dries the grapes, so they shrivel instead of spoiling.
Q 07The terraced Douro Valley, demarcated in 1756 for its famous fortified wine, lies in which country?
Portugal
Portugal's Douro Valley is the home of Port: a royal charter of 1756 fixed its boundaries, among the earliest drawn for any wine region, and spirit added mid-fermentation keeps the wine sweet.
Q 08Pinotage, a cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsault, was created in which country?
South Africa
Pinotage was bred in South Africa in 1925 by Abraham Perold at Stellenbosch University, crossing Pinot Noir with Cinsault, then known locally as Hermitage.
Q 09What common wine fault is often described as having aromas of damp cardboard, mold, or a musty basement?
Cork Taint
Cork taint comes from a compound in contaminated corks that some tasters detect at a few parts per trillion; screwcaps, now the most common closure in Australia and New Zealand, sharply cut the risk.
Q 10Which thin-skinned, fussy red grape makes the famous reds of the Côte d'Or in eastern France?
Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir's tightly packed bunches invite rot and disease, which is why growers call it the heartbreak grape; Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc are simply its colour mutations.
Q 11What do winemakers call the grey mould that shrivels ripe grapes for luscious sweet wines?
Noble rot
Noble rot is the winemaker's name for the fungus when misty mornings and dry afternoons let it shrivel grapes without spoiling them; in persistently wet weather it turns to grey rot and ruins the crop.
Q 12Which clarifying step adds an agent such as egg white to wine to bind and sink hazy particles?
Fining
Fining agents such as egg white, milk protein and isinglass, made from fish bladders, cling to the haze and sink with it, which is why not every wine is vegan.
Q 13Which red wine component binds to saliva proteins, causing a drying, puckering feel?
Tannins
Q 21Which German wine region is famed for Riesling grown on steep slate slopes above a winding river?
Mosel
The Mosel's steep riverside vineyards sit on slate that stores daytime heat, and its Rieslings are typically light, high in acidity and low in alcohol.
Q 22Which northern Rhône grape goes by a different name in Australia, where it is the most planted red?
Syrah/Shiraz
Syrah/Shiraz is one grape with two names: Shiraz in Australia, where it is the most planted red and was also called Hermitage until the late 1980s, when that French place name became protected.
Q 23What is a 'puncheon' in the context of wine aging?
A large 450-liter oak barrel
Tannins, the same compounds that make stewed tea astringent, bind to saliva proteins and help red wine age; protein-rich foods such as steak and hard cheese blunt their grip.
Q 14What is the space of air between the wine and the cork in a bottle called?
Ullage
Ullage is the air gap between wine and cork; the level drops as a bottle ages, and a large ullage warns buyers of evaporation or a failing cork.
Q 15What do winemakers call steeping grape skins in the juice to draw out colour?
Maceration
Maceration is the skin contact that gives red wine its colour and grip: a brief soak is enough for a rosé, while big reds may stay on their skins well after fermentation has finished.
Q 16What does the vintage year printed on a wine label record?
When the grapes were harvested
When the grapes were harvested is what a vintage records; many sparkling wines carry no year at all, because their makers blend several harvests to keep a house style from one year to the next.
Q 17Which winemaking process softens a wine's sharp acidity and can give Chardonnay a 'buttery' note?
Malolactic fermentation
Malolactic fermentation converts sharp malic acid to softer lactic acid; lactic bacteria rather than yeast do the work, and the by-product diacetyl is the compound used to flavour buttered popcorn.
Q 18What French term describes leaving wine on its dead yeast cells after fermentation for richness and texture?
Sur lie
Sur lie, 'on the yeast deposit', means the wine is not drawn off its spent yeast; some Loire whites print the words on the label, and the same contact gives long-aged sparkling wines their bready notes.
Q 19Which Italian region produces Barolo and Barbaresco from the Nebbiolo grape?
Piedmont
Piedmont's Langhe hills sit in fog on autumn mornings, so growers keep the best hilltop sites for late-ripening Nebbiolo, which is often not picked until late October.
Q 20What is the technique called in which Prosecco gets its bubbles from a second fermentation in pressurised tanks?
Charmat method
The Charmat method, known in Italy as the Martinotti method, runs the second fermentation in a sealed tank instead of in each bottle, which makes Prosecco cheaper to produce and less yeasty in taste.
A puncheon holds roughly 450 liters — about twice a standard 225-liter Bordeaux barrique — so it gives the wine a gentler dose of oak.
Q 24Which white grape varietal is primarily used to produce Sancerre wine from the Loire Valley, France?
Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Blanc now fills Sancerre's white wines, yet for most of the 19th century the district grew mostly red grapes; whites took over when the ruined vineyards were replanted.
Q 25Cloudy Bay Vineyards, whose 1985 release won New Zealand wine acclaim, is in which region?
Marlborough
Cloudy Bay sits in Marlborough at the top of the South Island, where commercial vineyards only arrived in 1973, when Montana planted the first large blocks; the winery's acclaim came just twelve years later.
Q 26Which bone-dry white from around Nantes, a classic partner for oysters, is made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape?
Muscadet
Muscadet comes from Melon de Bourgogne, a Burgundian grape that took over the vineyards around Nantes after the hard freeze of 1709 killed most of the region's vines.
Q 27Which Hungarian sweet wine, "Wine of Kings, King of Wines", is made from botrytised grapes?
Tokaji Aszú
Tokaji Aszú was traditionally graded in puttonyos, the large baskets of shrivelled, botrytised berries added to each cask of base wine: the more baskets, the sweeter the wine.
Q 28French agronomist Michel Pouget took Malbec vines in the 19th century to which country, now the grape's adopted home?
Argentina
Argentina owes its Malbec to French agronomist Michel Pouget; back in France, where the grape is also called Côt, a 1956 frost killed most of the vines and Bordeaux largely gave it up, leaving Argentina its stronghold.
Q 29What is 'Brix' a measurement of in winemaking?
Sugar content in grapes
Sugar content in grapes is what Brix measures: growers read it with a refractometer to time the harvest, since each degree ferments to roughly half a percent of alcohol.
Q 30Which viticulture follows Rudolf Steiner's ideas, timing work to an astrological calendar?
Biodynamic viticulture
Biodynamic viticulture follows Rudolf Steiner's 1924 lectures: growers bury manure-filled cow horns over winter, spray the resulting preparation on the vines, and treat the farm as a single living organism.