Wine words, cultural worlds

Abstract Wine discourse is fundamentally shaped by metaphor, transforming sensory and aesthetic qualities into culturally meaningful concepts that influence communication, evaluation, and consumer engagement. This systematic narrative review synthesizes 77 publications on wine language and metaphor published between 2007 and 2024, spanning cognitive linguistics, cultural linguistics, and sensory science. By integrating Conceptual Metaphor Theory ( Lakoff and Johnson 1980 ), Cultural Linguistics, and the Descriptive Analysis framework from sensory science, the review demonstrates how metaphor bridges sensory perception and communicative practice. It identifies recurrent patterns, including anthropomorphism, cross-sensory metaphors and correspondences, and embodied imagery, and traces their variation across linguistic and cultural contexts. Findings highlight both the potential and limitations of metaphor in facilitating cross-cultural communication, with implications for translation, marketing, and education. The review contributes to terminology studies by demonstrating how specialized wine discourse and its metaphorical terminology evolve at the intersection of cognition, culture, and commerce, and by offering strategies for more inclusive and effective global wine communication.