cuvée

thumb|right|Example of a label on a bottle of Zinfandel indicating "Cuvee XXVIII" (28) Cuvée () is a French wine term that derives from cuve, meaning vat or tank. Wine makers use the term cuvée with several meanings, more or less based on the concept of a tank of wine put to some purpose.

==Wines== Cuvée on wine labels generally denotes wine of a specific blend or batch. Since the term cuvée for this purpose is unregulated, and most wines have been stored in a vat or tank at some stage of production, the presence of the word cuvée on a label of an arbitrary producer is no guarantee of superior quality. However, discerning producers who market both regular blends and blends they call "cuvée..." usually reserve the word for special blends or selected vats of higher quality—at least in comparison to that producer's regular wines. Particularly terms like cuvée speciale, or tête de cuvée (the latter especially in Sauternes AOC) are supposed to indicate higher quality. In this context, higher-quality than ordinary cuvées are often referred to as reserve wines, while a cuvée lower in quality than the main one is a second wine.