nountaille

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

  ‘The main direct tax, the taille, was levied on persons in central provinces, but on land in peripheral ones like Languedoc.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The common tax - the taille - was increased to finance French foreign policy and this was organised by the chancellor Antoine Duprat.’
  • ‘Nevertheless, in most provinces, nobles continued to escape the oldest basic direct tax, the taille, not to mention forced labour on the roads.’
  • ‘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.’
  • ‘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.’
  • ‘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.’
  • ‘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.’
  • ‘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).’
  • ‘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.’
  • ‘Receivers of direct taxes - taille, capitation, and vingtiemes - also profited from the fiscal system.’
  • ‘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.’
  • ‘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.’

• 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.

  ‘Separating the juice as it leaves the press yields 20.5hl of 'cuvée' (the first pressing) and 5hl of 'taille' (the second pressing).’

  More example sentences

  • ‘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'.’
  • ‘Juice from the second pressing - the Taille - is not used to make Champagne de Venoge.’

  Synonyms

  liquid, fluid, sap

  1. 2.1Low-quality wine made from taille.
     ‘"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.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘The taille, which is produced by the second pressing, is sold off.’