(Clevland) - With the typical grocery store having hundreds of different wine bottles arranged by geographic region or varietal, it's easy to be overwhelmed by choices on the market. If you don't know a few basic terms on a bottle, your confusion probably will grow. And what better time to learn than today, Oct. 15, National Red Wine Day?

My two mantras are Drink What You Like and Don't Be Intimidated. Personal taste determine the former; knowledge solves the latter.

The Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau reviews more than 100,000 alcohol labels annually. Here are nine typical terms you see on wine labels and what they mean:

ALC BY VOL – Alcohol by volume. The range for wine is not as wide as that for beer. Many wines fall around 12-14 percent, with reds running a tad higher in alcohol. (Wines higher in alcohol are known as 'hot' wines.) Why do some wines have alcohol percentages and others don't? From the TTB comes a set of many rules regulating labels. And on this subject, for instance, "... when the words 'Table Wine' are present on the brand label, the alcohol content need not be specifically shown on the label as long as the alcohol content of the product is between 7 and 14% by volume."

"Contains sulfites" – A compound that works as a preservative in wine but can cause an allergic reaction in a small percentage (about 1 percent) of people. Sulfites come about during fermentation. This phrase is usually, but not always, required on bottles, based on where the wine is being shipped.

Estate bottled – This means that "100 percent of the wine came from grapes grown on land owned or controlled by the winery... The vineyard and winery must be in the same viticultural area." Some wineries have vineyards scattered over one particular area, while others bring in grapes from other places - including out of state. Because of the harsh winter northern Ohio recently experienced, some of the local wineries were forced to buy grapes from out-of-area producers. So bottles with these grapes will not contain "Estate bottled" whereas in the past, they might have used that designation.