Name for a wine, which is used to define the taste of a certain type of wine in a wine evaluation. It is used, for example, when a wine must meet certain sensory requirements in a quality inspection. These can be different requirements such as "no barrique note" and/or "fruity" and/or "regionally typical" and/or "no tastable residual sugar" and/or "no botrytis note". The reference wine must meet all these defined requirements, regardless of the number of points it scores in any grading. It then serves as a benchmark for the wines to be assessed. A level wine has a completely different objective.
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