Thankfully, there is a movement to remove the word ‘funky’ from popular wine vocabulary. Funky is the ‘meh’ of wine – it doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all. It’s over. Funky, when applied to wine, can describe flavours that are exciting, complex and intriguing but can also be used to justify wines that are badly made: loosely structured, vinegary, insipid. Avoid blanket terms and look for tasting notes that evoke something in you. Look at where the wine is made: Slovenia and Georgia have a long history with these terracotta-jacuzzi wines so you can probably bet wines from there are made in the traditional style, but there are excellent varieties from all over Europe which may be better suited to your palate. Sediment is a good thing: it will usually indicate a wine that has not been filtered or fined and will therefore have a bit of the earthy goodness otherwise known as flavour in there.