A wine label is a remarkably small document for the amount of responsibility it carries. It must identify the wine, communicate its origin and satisfy various legal requirements, while somehow persuading you to choose it over the forty-seven bottles standing beside it.

Some of the information is straightforward. Some requires a working knowledge of European geography, several centuries of wine regulation and an unreasonable number of French villages.

The useful habit is to begin with what can be established: where the wine comes from, who produced it, when the grapes were harvested and what the label is legally entitled to claim. The more flattering adjectives can wait.

A famous appellation is not a guarantee of a wonderful bottle, and an unfamiliar one is not a warning. Producers matter. So do vintages, vineyard decisions and, inconveniently for the label designer, what the wine actually tastes like.

This week, OINOS is looking at the information we buy before we’ve tasted a drop.