Most Italian-focused wine professionals in the U.S. face a sticky linguistic challenge: how to distinguish between the classic expression of an appellation and a vineyard-designated or riserva category.

And it’s not an issue confined solely to purely anglophone wine pros. Italian speakers often get tripped up by the tongue-tying conundrum.

For many, the knee-jerk reaction in such cases is to call the classic wine normale or normal.

Here’s how the Oxford English Dictionary defines normal:

“Constituting or conforming to a type or standard; regular, usual, typical; ordinary, conventional.”

I’m using Barbaresco as an example but this problem stretches across a broad swath of wines where single-vineyard and riserva designations are commonly used.

The moment you call the wine “normal,” it’s as if you are saying that it’s “ordinary” or “conventional.” Think of how many classic wines for which this couldn’t be farther from the truth!

And depending on who you talk to, many Nebbiolo growers, for example, will tell you that classic, blended expressions of their wines are often the ones they hold to be most representative of their appellations. It’s only in recent memory that single-vineyard and riserva designations have proliferated. This trend, in my view, is more driven by the market than the production.

There are also plenty of winemakers who decide not to use a designation, even though they could. Should those wines be penalized because their producers chose not to give them a fancy label?

My recommendation and my practice is to call non-vineyard and non-riserva designate wines “classic.”

And let’s not even talk about the people who call the classic expressions “regular.”

Wine isn’t gasoline, is it?