Definition of taille in US English:

noun

• 1(in France before 1789) a tax levied on the common people by the king or an overlord.

  Example sentences

  • ‘The government restructured the tax base to place greater emphasis on indirect taxes (duties, tariffs, excise taxes, and state-owned monopolies over sales of salt and tobacco) rather than on the peasant-based taille.’
  • ‘Colbert was able, in his first decade, to get a grip on taxation and revenue, reduce the level of the taille by 20 per cent, cut the cost of servicing the debt and the costs of revenue farming.’
  • ‘However, Louis would have considered this to be a good investment as a large army could be used to collect taxes even more effectively, especially when the King decided to raise the taille to add even more money to raise income.’
  • ‘He abandoned the countryside above all to escape the taille, a tax to which, unlike the nobles, he would have been subject if he had continued to live in rural France.’
  • ‘Receivers of direct taxes - taille, capitation, and vingtiemes - also profited from the fiscal system.’
  • ‘Both appear to have been financially respectable, but hardly wealthy, paying between 50 sous and three livres per year in tailles (after a fifty percent reduction for municipal service).’
  • ‘The main direct tax, the taille, was levied on persons in central provinces, but on land in peripheral ones like Languedoc.’
  • ‘Nevertheless, in most provinces, nobles continued to escape the oldest basic direct tax, the taille, not to mention forced labour on the roads.’
  • ‘It ruled in 1786 that land near the chapel of Notre Dame de Vals belonging to the sieur Ranbaud, priest of Ginestas, a parish in the diocese of Narbonne, be exempt from the taille.’
  • ‘Says Bloch: ‘Nobles need not pay taille.’’
  • ‘Although exempt from the usual head tax, or taille, religious communities were subject to a duty on property purchases known as the amortissement so as to compensate for the property's removal from the tax rolls.’
  • ‘As early as 1439 the nobility had given the king the right to maintain a standing army and to raise the taille which was a tax to pay for the army.’
  • ‘The Valois ruler's centralization, with their tailles and standardization of language and arts, would lead to expensive voyages to prestatial America, where their influence remains today in Quebec and Louisiana.’
  • ‘The common tax - the taille - was increased to finance French foreign policy and this was organised by the chancellor Antoine Duprat.’

• 2The juice produced from a second pressing of the grapes during winemaking, generally considered inferior because it contains less sugar and more tannin and has lower acidity than the first pressing.

  Example sentences

  • ‘Juice from the second pressing - the Taille - is not used to make Champagne de Venoge.’
  • ‘Separating the juice as it leaves the press yields 20.5hl of 'cuvée' (the first pressing) and 5hl of 'taille' (the second pressing).’
  • ‘The different juices - the auto-pressing, the cuvée and the taille - are then collected and poured into either oak or cement measuring vats called 'belons'.’

  Synonyms

  liquid, fluid, sap

  View synonyms

  1. 2.1 Low-quality wine made from taille.
     Example sentences

     • ‘"White Foil” is composed of wines drawn only from the cuvee (the first, light pressing) and, where appropriate, the taille (second pressing), which provides a higher proportion of essential tannins.’
     • ‘The taille, which is produced by the second pressing, is sold off.’