Alain Carbonneau offers definitions for 200 vine-related words in French and English

here is no shortage of reference works for translating wine vocabulary into French and English, from the long-standing Lexivin/Lexiwine since 1987 to the more recent ‘Anglais du Vin’ (2024) and the multilingual dictionary of vines and wines with translations in German, Spanish and Italian for instance. In his 100-page French-English viticulture dictionary (€29), ‘200 words for understanding vines’, retired lecturer Alain Carbonneau offers another, more encyclopaedic approach with 200 words translated and defined in both languages. Published by France Agricole – which belongs to the same group as Vitisphere – his dictionary centres on viticulture and takes a scientific approach to vocabulary, from the use of technical terms to their bibliography sources. “To offer better guidance for searching out information on viticulture and understanding the meaning of words to make informed viticultural choices, a dictionary that defines the fundamental concepts is a practical solution”, says professor Carbonneau in his foreword.

Definitions are provided for words that can be very similar in both languages: ampélographie = ampelography; densité de plantation = plantation density and so on. Other translations are difficult to invent without prior knowledge. So, for example, ébourgeonnage = disbudding; échalas = stakes… Other words are quite simply French. A former professor at the viticulture chair in Montpellier’s agricultural college, Carbonneau also has his favourite vine training system: lyre = “In ampelography, this descriptor is attached to the shape of the petiolar or lateral sinuses; in canopy management, it designates a particular architecture of the vegetation whose microclimatic, ecophysiological and qualitative qualities have been demonstrated”.