Being in or near the wine business it’s easy to forget how little a lot of people know about some of the things that the industry takes for granted. Sometimes I cringe when I hear a winemaker talking to a consumer group, and throwing in jargon like “appellation” and “AVA” and “TTB” when they’re talking about something as simple as what’s on their wine label.

One of the things that people should pay more attention to on a label is the appellation. That’s the place name. It’s not the place in small print saying where the wine was cellared, bottled, or “vinted” whatever that means, but the bigger print usually on the front that says Bordeaux Superieur or Rioja or Sonoma County. For US wines, AVA is another way of saying appellation. It means an official American Viticultural Area recognized by the TTB (Tax and Trade Bureau) of the Treasury Department.

While some food and drink carries a general notation of its origin, like Idaho potatoes and Sumatra coffee, wine can narrow the notion down to the precise plot of land where the grapes grew. In general, the more specific the appellation, the better you can expect the wine to be.

Here’s what the most common terms on American-made wines mean:

California: If a wine label says “California” on the front it means the grapes could have been grown anywhere up and down this gigantic state. In effect it often indicates that a high percentage of the wine comes from cheaper Central Valley grapes that make less concentrated, less interesting wines.

Counties, valleys: Specific terms such as Napa Valley, Sonoma County and Willamette Valley are almost always a good sign. They mean that at least 85 percent of the wine was made from grapes grown there.

Towns, districts: If you see a town name like Oakville or a district name like Carneros it means even more specialization, better odds for high quality and an inevitably higher price.

Vineyard designations: The individual property where the grapes came from, like Sangiacomo Vineyard or Bien Nacido Vineyard, is the finest geographical distinction a winery can put on a bottle. This is usually a good sign of quality and a chance to experience what the French call terroir, the taste of a place.

Estate bottled: Another good sign of quality. It means that the wine was made from grapes grown in vineyards owned (or leased for the long term) by the winery itself, not grown by an independent farmer or another winery.

Produced and bottled by: This is one of the best phrases to see in fine print on a label. It means that the winery itself actually crushed the grapes, fermented the juice and put the wine into bottles. The only thing better in this regard is “grown, produced and bottled by,” which is basically the same as estate bottled. Other phrases, such as “vinted and bottled by” and “cellared and bottled by” can mean the winery bought the wine from another vintner, maybe blended it and aged it a bit — maybe not — then bottled it.

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