The two men are black and admitted to police that they had purchased a rope used in the alleged incident and were paid, according to another person familiar with the matter. One of the two men appeared on “Empire,” that person said.

Now, police are seeking to question Mr. Smollett again.

“He is not listed as an offender, we just have some information that we have to run by him,” said Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi on Sunday.

In a statement released by Mr. Smollett’s publicist, lawyers for the actor rejected allegations that he played a role in his attack.

“Nothing could be further from the truth and anyone claiming otherwise is lying,” the lawyers said.

The attorneys said one of the men was a personal trainer hired to help Mr. Smollett get ready for a music video.

They said Mr. Smollett will continue to cooperate with the investigation and anticipates being updated by police.

Mr. Smollett initially told police he was returning home from a nearby Subway sandwich shop early on Jan. 29 when he was approached by two men yelling epithets about his race and sexual orientation. He said the men hit him in the face, put a rope around his neck and poured an unknown chemical on him.

The attackers, Mr. Smollett later told police, also told him, “This is MAGA country,” a reference to “Make America Great Again,” a slogan popularized by President Trump.

Since then, investigators have reviewed hundreds of hours of security-camera footage while searching for evidence. They also focused on the rope said to have been used in the attack and identified the retailers who sell it.

Mr. Guglielmi, the police spokesman, said Mr. Smollett has been “very consistent” about his story when speaking with investigators.

Mr. Smollett spent time Thursday answering follow-up questions from police, according to a publicist for Mr. Smollett. He had discussed the alleged attack in interviews, providing additional details at times.

Write to Erin Ailworth at Erin.Ailworth@wsj.com and Douglas Belkin at doug.belkin@wsj.com

These are but some of the 20 17th- and 18th-century paintings and drawings featured in “Seeing the Divine: Pahari Painting of North India.” They are by artists in kingdoms nestled in the Himalayan foothills, all but four folio-sized, and together they show off the richness of this chapter in South Asia’s art history. Their palettes range from saturated reds and yellows to mauves and pastels, with some painters using bold, dynamic strokes reminiscent of folk art and others displaying styles associated with Mughal courts. But the selection of works, which includes a 26-foot-long festival banner made around 1800, also brings out some of the dynamics at the core of the bhakti tradition in Hinduism. Bhakti, or devotion, is a spiritual path that uses music, dance, poetry, literature and such rituals as bathing, dressing and garlanding statues believed to house deities.

What we see here are painters bringing to life ancient poetry and epics with an eye to engaging viewers emotionally. Some depict favorites—witness the three wonderful Ramayana scenes attributed to Manaku, one of the great 18th-century Pahari masters. Or the tale of Krishna’s elopement with Rukmini, an act that so provoked a thwarted rival suitor that he marshaled his forces. The story fills the embroidered banner, starting right to left on the lower register, then doubling back on the upper, left to right. This split composition allows noncontiguous scenes to play against one another so that as we look at the happy couple, born aloft on a palanquin amid much celebratory pageantry, we also take in the murderous mayhem of war hovering above like an evil omen.

‘Krishna as a Child Stealing Butter,’ folio from the devotional text of the Bhagavata (c. 1780) Photo: Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections

Other works surprise with rarely illustrated scenes. Kurt Behrendt, Met associate curator of South Asian art, displays a number of the latter, including an eye-popping painting by a master artist who worked at the Court of Mankot between about 1680 and 1730. It portrays the goddess Durga confronting the demon Mahisha as he, having been decapitated by a swing of her sword, shape-shifts from human to elephant.

What is striking is the degree to which Pahari paintings also map and elicit reactions to the divine. Mahisha’s disembodied head, for example, looks up at Durga with an expression of submission even as he makes a last-ditch effort to outmaneuver her. For its part, the depiction of Vishnu’s boar avatar (described above and painted about 1775-80 in Kangra or Guler) exudes such calm and control as to be placid—a reassuring quality in a deity charged with maintaining the cosmic order. And two small groupings directly address the relationship between human devotee and god, a dynamic often described through the metaphor of lovers.

‘Krishna Dances in the Raslila with the Gopis (Female Cowherds)’ (c. 1750) Photo: Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collections

The first group (all from about 1775-80) illustrates moments in the Gita Govinda, a 12th-century poem by Jayadeva. It begins with Krishna and his beloved Radha in the forest at night, followed by Radha sitting alone, her henna-tipped fingers limp, eyes downcast. She longs to be with her lover, like the pair of birds in the background. In the next painting, Krishna is encircled by maidens who embrace, touch and reach for him while others drink him in with their eyes as they await their turn. The god is like the nearby tree entwined with vines, engaged with them all even though—such are the limitations of the human form—he can lock eyes with only one….unless, as a painting from about 1750 illustrates, Krishna multiplies himself as he does at a Raslila celebration in order to dance with an endless number of women, every couple gazing into each other’s eyes, every relationship simultaneously unique and universal.

So central to Hinduism is this visual contact—known as darshan—that it is fitting that the show ends with three portrayals of rulers standing, hands clasped in respectful salutation. They are looking at and being seen by gods their bhakti practice has brought before them in a vision. Painted in different court workshops, the differences in palettes, compositions and overall styles elicit yet another emotion, this time from us: admiration.

—Ms. Lawrence writes about Asian and Islamic art for the Journal.

Yves Saint Laurent’s creative director, Anthony Vaccarello. Photo: François Halard for WSJ. Magazine

“I could spend all day in here,” Vaccarello says. The 39-year-old fashion designer has always been a low-key personality, loath to toot his own horn, even though he has enjoyed double-digit sales growth at Saint Laurent since he was named creative director in April 2016. So maybe it makes sense that in this new mothership, the result of three years of work, he prefers a hidden space over all else.

Aboveground, the complex—there is a main office building, which is historically registered, and two converted stables—houses most of the company’s 400-some Paris-based employees. Complementing the grand reception room that Vaccarello uses for on-site meetings are a few somber pieces of furniture by Jean-Michel Frank and Alfred Porteneuve. Herringbone parquet floors underfoot give off a comforting creak. Vast, sun-strewn spaces throughout the abbey are punctuated by artworks by Daniel Buren and Franz West, as well as tribal pieces from New Zealand and Kenya. Some are on loan from the personal collection of François Pinault, founder of Kering, the luxury conglomerate that acquired Yves Saint Laurent in 1999. Others, like a Mapplethorpe, are from Vaccarello, and some, like a pair of illuminated columns, are from the estate of Yves Saint Laurent himself, who died in 2008.

A room featuring a Jean Prouvé table and a Pierre Jeanneret stool, next to a 1982 photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe. “We wanted to leave behind [the former headquarters at] Avenue George V and position the Saint Laurent brand somewhere more elevated and chic,” says Vaccarello. Photo: François Halard for WSJ. Magazine

Vaccarello handled the interior design, only his second time tackling such a large redecoration project, after redoing, in a similarly spare style, a 5,400-square-foot hôtel particulier in the sixth arrondissement. He lives there with his husband, Arnaud Michaux, who works alongside him in the YSL atelier. “We need that much space for the dog,” Vaccarello says, laughing. Nino is a French bulldog, whose needs are not exactly those of a Great Dane, “but he’s nervous.” (The breed is a house specialty: Monsieur Saint Laurent had a string of four, each one named Moujik.) Vaccarello is of Italian heritage but he grew up in Brussels, where he studied fashion at La Cambre; he says that his aesthetic restraint comes from his Belgian side. “I just can’t concentrate when the space is too charged.”

The rue de Bellechasse headquarters was the idea of Francesca Bellettini, president and CEO of Yves Saint Laurent. When she arrived from another Kering brand, Bottega Veneta, in 2013, the house’s main design atelier was in Los Angeles, where its former creative director, Hedi Slimane, was based. (He is now at Celine, owned by Kering’s luxury conglomerate rival, LVMH.) The dressmaking and tailoring ateliers were in Paris, on the rue de l’Université, and support staff was spread out over several other offices throughout the capital. “It’s something I said from the first day that I joined,” says Bellettini, 48, in an interview with Vaccarello. “We need to bring everybody together in order to emphasize the sense of belonging and make it easier to create a new culture.”

The main staircase. Photo: François Halard for WSJ. Magazine

A location did not reveal itself immediately, so Bellechasse broke ground only in January 2015. From the beginning, Vaccarello’s job included monthly meetings about the project, which was still in its earliest construction phase. “We wanted to leave behind Avenue George V,” he says, referring to the longtime headquarters in the eighth arrondissement, “and position the Saint Laurent brand somewhere more elevated and chic. This place represents everything we’ve been trying to do.” Costs will remain the same. “I am a former banker,” says Bellettini, who once worked at Goldman Sachs. “It has to make financial sense.” It is a muscular gesture as well, setting down such a huge footprint in the high-priced heart of the city while competitors like Chanel and Hermès have moved offices and production ateliers to the nearby suburb of Pantin. (Vaccarello uses the rue de l’Université atelier, a 10-minute walk away, as his design studio.)

When Vaccarello arrived at Yves Saint Laurent three years ago, true to his customary discretion, it wasn’t with an explosion. The bomb had already been detonated by Slimane, who took the reins in 2012 and radically changed almost every aspect of the brand. (Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, owned by L’Oréal, is the sole part of the Yves Saint Laurent universe he did not touch.) Slimane supplanted the tepidly pretty, bourgeois style of the house’s previous designer, Stefano Pilati, with a rock-and-roll spirit more appropriate for Hollywood Boulevard than Paris’s rue de Grenelle. He gutted the boutiques, redesigning them in a severe style: gray, black and white marble and chrome. He even removed the founder’s first name from the brand. (Protest T-shirts circulated in response, bearing the message “Ain’t Laurent Without Yves.”)

At the beginning of his Saint Laurent tenure, Slimane was mostly excoriated by fashion critics, but retailers cheered his rigorously unsentimental creative destruction because from it came the kind of clothes most people actually wear these days. Among seasonal offerings, Slimane built a core collection available year round: perfecto jackets, skinny black jeans, simple blazers, Chelsea boots. Slimane doubled annual sales in his first three years, to about €707 million ($794 million) in 2014. By 2016, when he left, revenues had surpassed $1 billion. Today, under Vaccarello’s creative stewardship, they have reached €1.7 billion ($2.03 billion).

A space designed by Vaccarello for his personal use, with Jean-Michel Frank armchairs, Arno Declercq side tables and Kenyan funerary figures. Photo: François Halard for WSJ. Magazine

“When I joined Saint Laurent we were at about €560 million [$740 million] in revenues,” says Bellettini. “And at that time, in the company, they were all talking about getting to €1 billion. I wanted to help people see what the potential of this brand could be. Everything was here to make it even bigger.” Bellettini hired a management consulting firm, and together they established a long-term goal for three times higher.

“I remember when I sat down with Mr. Bergé,” she says, referring to Pierre Bergé, the founding CEO of the house and Yves Saint Laurent’s partner, who maintained a mentoring role until his death in 2017. “I said, ‘This company can get to €3 billion.’ He was smiling so much. He was very happy.”

Bellettini had known for months before it was announced in April 2016 that Slimane would be leaving, so she was able to think carefully about his replacement. While some legacy fashion houses reinvent themselves from scratch every few years with a new creative director—Dior, Lanvin and Balenciaga come to mind—brand confusion can be a result. Bellettini wasn’t interested in reversing a direction that had proven so successful. She was asked to make a list, and put only one name on it: Anthony Vaccarello.

A large ’60s-era Daniel Buren painting greets visitors in the black-and-white lobby space. Photo: François Halard for WSJ. Magazine

Vaccarello, who launched his own line in 2008, shares important aesthetic touchstones with his predecessor: He is skilled at sharp tailoring, loves graphic black and minimalist presentation and is driven to repeatedly rework the tent poles of a wardrobe. By the time he came to Bellettini’s attention, in addition to his eponymous company, he was the creative director of Versus, Versace’s second line. “We started to see a lot of magazine editorials of our accessories shown with Anthony’s ready-to-wear,” Bellettini says. “I said, ‘Who is this guy?’ What he designed went very well with us. I saw what he was doing for Versus, and I loved the fact that he was respecting what Versus is, but you could still see him. When you look at Anthony’s own label over time, you can see that he had a signature without even having a logo. He doesn’t need to go to the moon one season, and then another season to Brazil. It was consistent.”

Both Bellettini and Vaccarello have had to grapple with the brand’s long and weighty heritage. Each asked to see the archives immediately upon arrival. “You have to pay respects when you join a maison like this,” Bellettini says. “Saint Laurent is a company that all French people love and believe is their own. Everyone has their opinion of what you’re doing.”

Vaccarello felt a similar pressure upon receiving Bellettini’s offer. “I had said no to a lot of houses and propositions, but you can’t say no to Yves Saint Laurent. Once you’re here you feel responsible for the other people around you.” He says he finds it odd to see his own designs in the archives hanging next to the master’s. “It’s flattering to see what we’re doing next to [Yves Saint Laurent’s] work, but I don’t go back to see my own clothes there. I don’t want to see my things frozen and finished. I try not to think about all that.”

In past interviews, Vaccarello has professed admiration of Slimane’s reinvention of Saint Laurent. “I have a lot of respect for him, doing what he believes in,” Vaccarello told me for Harper’s Bazaar in 2016, right before he was named Saint Laurent’s creative director. “He doesn’t give a shit. I think [his work at YSL] is great.”

A wall of the showroom, in a former stable. “I wanted to help people see what the potential of this brand could be. Everything was here to make it even bigger,” says Yves Saint Laurent CEO Francesca Bellettini, who projects it can reach €3 billion in revenues. Photo: François Halard for WSJ. Magazine

It required no adjustment to maintain the core collection approach set by Slimane—who has also carried this structure with him to Celine. “The DNA is very real,” Vaccarello says. “It’s natural here to do a blazer or a tuxedo, it’s part of the culture. We don’t do a coat with three sleeves. That realness is fascinating to work with. It’s a wardrobe, which is Saint Laurent. I like that a woman can pick something up from three seasons ago and not feel out of style.” Vaccarello did not feel the need to overhaul the existing boutiques, which are, under Bellettini, a target for future expansion. (By the end of last year, there were 219 worldwide.)

“Graphically [the design] was so pure and simple; I didn’t want to do something too charged just to say I did it.” This applies to the next boutique Saint Laurent will unveil, in the former space of the Parisian boutique Colette, on the rue Saint-Honoré. “The lights will be warmer, and we’ll add some more vintage elements,” he explains, to soften the existing template, not overhaul it.

Having another steady hand on Saint Laurent’s creative tiller makes Bellettini’s job easier. “It allows us to build an authentic relationship with the client over time. People aren’t surprised to enter the store and say, ‘Oh, my God, it’s all pink! What happened to Saint Laurent?’ From a business standpoint what Anthony is doing is incredible. You get more longevity to the product so you can delay the moment you have to take it off the racks. It allows me to improve the margins of the company,” she says.

An entrance, featuring the original logo as commissioned by Yves Saint Laurent. Photo: François Halard for WSJ. Magazine

Bellettini has also focused on vertical integration and supply-chain efficiency, investing in new production facilities in Italy, and she reorganized the corporate structure to give the main regions worldwide—Japan, Asia-Pacific, North America and Europe—more autonomy and efficiency. “The president of each region has a CEO function in that retail, wholesale, communication, human resources and finances for their region report to them,” she explains. “Then they report directly to me. I consider them my eyes and arms in the market. They can give me very useful information to execute strategy in the best possible way,” which is important as luxury brands stumble in adapting themselves to emerging markets.

Another goal is having clothing represent more of the company’s bottom line, giving dressed-up glamour on the runway a stronger presence in stores. “Relying on accessories alone is too risky,” says Bellettini. The shows have had a more public profile as well: Since Vaccarello’s third outing, the runway presentations took place at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Louche voyeurism has been part of Saint Laurent’s identity since Yves Saint Laurent commissioned Jeanloup Sieff and Helmut Newton to shoot ads in the ’70s, and Vaccarello takes to it naturally. Slimane opted for stripped-down black-and-white portraiture, and Vaccarello often does too. But the advertising campaigns he commissions from photographers and directors like Collier Schorr, David Sims, duo Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin and Nathalie Canguilhem, such as a spring 2018 campaign with Kate Moss dangling from a helicopter topless in a fur chubby, encourage fantasy over stark realism. Vaccarello also has a millennial’s instinct for social media. He’s expanded the company’s Instagram account, @ysl, from nearly 357,000 followers in 2016 to 5.5 million, personally approving every post that goes up, including Polaroids from fittings and behind-the-scenes montages that have the kind of improvisational feel that drives engagement. He has also commissioned unusual artworks, starting with a 2016 series of erotic bondage photographs by the Japanese artist Araki of Vaccarello’s frequent muse, model Anja Rubik. That has given rise to a Saint Laurent initiative called Self, collaborations with contemporary artists such as the photographer Daido Moriyama, artist Vanessa Beecroft and, next up, writer Bret Easton Ellis, who is contributing a video.

The CEO and designer are turning into close partners. “If I have to make a big decision, Anthony is the first person I call,” Bellettini says. Working dinners easily became social occasions. Vaccarello cooks pasta for the homesick Italian and turns Bellettini onto her pop-culture entertainment, most recently the TV series The Handmaid’s Tale and Sharp Objects. He says he thinks of her when he designs the collection, especially the tuxedos, which have become Bellettini’s black-tie uniform. So well does he know his CEO’s taste that he surprised her with a French bulldog as a gift. “I never would have made the decision to do that myself,” she says. Now it turns out that hers, Pepe, has fallen in love with Nino.

Says Vaccarello, “There’s no separation between work and life.”

The Culinary Arts Certificate coursework includes thorough training from industry pros in customer service and front-of-house skills. “Students first learn the technical side of service, and then we get into the philosophy of hospitality and how to convey it better,” said Ms. Martin.

It might be as simple as pulling a chair out, or it might mean a tour of the kitchen or wine cellar. According to Ms. Martin, this is taught through “systems, not just smiles.”

At Commander’s Palace, for instance, forms posted in each part of the house inform staff if a guest is celebrating a special occasion or has particular preferences. “Having that system in place makes it easier for us to be warm and gracious and hospitable, and to connect,” said Ms. Martin. “The other night we had a guest who drinks a certain brand of liquor that we didn’t have in house. So we sent somebody to the store to get it.”

The NOCHI concept has gestated a long time. In 1983, Ms. Martin’s mother, the late, legendary restaurateur “Miss Ella” Brennan, helped rewrite restaurant history when she gathered industry luminaries in New Orleans for the American Cuisine Symposium. During the event, top chefs such as Jeremiah Tower and Jonathan Waxman put forward a new model for American dining rooted in strong farmer-chef relationships, seasonal cooking and local ingredients. “People now want to know, ‘Who is making the food, where did it come from and how did it get here?’ ” said Ms. Martin. She believes the next step in the food revolution her mother helped foment 35 years ago must be as much about what happens around the table as what goes on it.

To that end and to mark the 125th birthday of Commander’s Palace, this past fall Ms. Martin revived the symposium. Now called the American Cuisine and Hospitality Symposium, the event offered a renewed focus on what Ms. Martin considers a dying art. “It starts with bringing hospitality back to restaurants,” she said. “I feel that if everything goes right, and people leave happier than when they arrived, they’ll be a little kinder outside.”

Ms. Martin hopes that in the same way chefs have risen to star status, front-of-house staff will get the recognition they, too, deserve. “I have a photograph of one of my valets standing in pouring rain at absolute attention with a golf umbrella over a guest while he is getting drenched,” she said. “That valet is a hospitality hero, and those people need to be highlighted and praised.”

Miss Ella, who died last May at the age of 92, called Commander’s a “fine-dining joint,” and it remains the sort of place where servers select an appropriately colored napkin for each guest, so as to not leave a trace of lint on garments. It is also the sort of place where guests dance, waving those napkins, in the trail of a jazz band parading through the dining rooms during brunch. Often described as “haute Creole,” the cooking runs to high-low classics such as bread-pudding soufflé, cultivated over generations by some of the nation’s greatest chefs, including Paul Prudhomme, Emeril Lagasse, Jamie Shannon and current kitchen leader Tory McPhail.

As a restaurateur, Ms. Martin continues to hone that style of hospitality with 21st-century diners in mind. Last September she opened Picnic Provisions & Whiskey with Mr. McPhail and business partner Darryl Reginelli. She describes the new restaurant as “fast fine” dining. Patrons can play a game of cornhole while enjoying crawfish boil fried chicken and smoked fish-collar dip.

Though Picnic Provisions & Whiskey is a very different restaurant from Commander’s, it retains the same emphasis on hospitality. “Picnicking itself is hospitable,” Ms. Martin said. “It’s about sharing. It’s about having fun and everyone being at the same level.”

With staff, Ms. Martin emphasizes connection. “Body language is a big part of what we work on. There’s a warm, professional way to stand and walk, and there’s a hospitable way to get out of other people’s way,” she said. It’s one of the first things students who work at the NOCHI cafe learn.

“Enthusiast” cooks visiting NOCHI for a one-off class learn a thing or two about a genuine New Orleans welcome, too. In a class called “The Lost Restaurants of New Orleans,” for instance, writer and NPR host Poppy Tooker schools students in a grand tradition. “We’re talking about an era when restaurateurs were setting the example and making personal connections,” said Ms. Martin. “They were at your table, looking after you.”

Every “Enthusiast” class culminates with participants sitting down to a meal together—with drink pairings. “There is a phrase that I firmly believe in,” Ms. Martin said. “ ‘Instead of building a bigger fence, let’s build a longer table.’ It starts there.”

Fried Chicken at Picnic Provisions & Whiskey in New Orleans. Photo: Daymon Gardner for The Wall Street Journal

Crawfish Boil Hot Fried Chicken

This spicy fried chicken is served at Picnic Provisions & Whiskey, where owner Ti Adelaide Martin aims to revive the art of hospitality.

ACTIVE TIME: 2 hours TOTAL TIME: 18 hours (includes marinating and chilling) SERVES: 4-6

2 whole chickens (3½-4 pounds each), cut into 8 pieces each

4 quarts cold water

4 tablespoons Zatarain’s Crawfish, Shrimp & Crab Boil

3 cups flour

3 teaspoons salt

1½ teaspoons black pepper

1 teaspoon Creole seasoning

Vegetable oil for frying

1. The night before: In a large pot, combine chicken, water and crab boil. Transfer to refrigerator and let chicken marinate overnight.

2. Prepare the chicken: Remove chicken from brine and pat dry. In a medium bowl, whisk together 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Dredge chicken through flour mixture to coat. Arrange dredged chicken on a sheet pan in a single layer. Transfer chicken to refrigerator and let sit, uncovered, at least 2 hours. (This extracts excess water for a crisper skin.)

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together 2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper and Creole seasoning. Remove chicken from refrigerator and dredge in new flour mixture to coat liberally. Shake off excess flour.

4. Fry the chicken: Fill a large skillet with ¾ inch vegetable oil and heat to 350 degrees. Working in batches to avoid crowding pan, fry chicken until a thermometer inserted at meatiest point reads 165 degrees, 9-12 minutes per side. Transfer fried chicken to a wire rack and season with more salt, pepper and Creole seasoning to taste.

—Adapted from chef Tory McPhail of Picnic Provisions & Whiskey, New Orleans

Words do have selling power, of course. Take the Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay, created by the late Jess Jackson in 1982. The sweetish Chardonnay, positioned as the carefully selected work of a “vintner,” was an early example of the kind of creative labeling I’m talking about. The wine’s taste was populist, as was its price (about $12 in today’s currency), yet the term “vintner” had a soigné sound. The wine was an immediate hit.

Longtime Kendall-Jackson winemaker Randy Ullom, who has made several vintages of Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay over the years, offered this take on the name: “I believe [Mr. Jackson] wanted to make it stand out and considered ‘Reserve’ as a quality statement, especially since he was fermenting it in barrels. And ‘Vintner’s Reserve’ was even more special, coming from the vintner him or herself.”

Never mind that there was no non-reserve Jackson wine to which the Vintner’s Reserve could be compared. One of the wine world’s great marketers, Jess Jackson helped establish a trend. Today there are lots of “Vintner’s Reserve” and “Proprietor’s Reserve” and “Winemaker’s Reserve” wines, as I found during a recent visit to a few local wine shops.

In the U.S., wineries are allowed to use many front-label terms that have no “regulatory definition,” according to Gladys Horiuchi, media relations director of the San Francisco-based Wine Institute. She sent me a list of such terms that she and her staff have compiled over the years, including “Vintner’s Reserve” as well as “Old Vines,” “Old Clones,” “Private Harvest,” “Barrel Select,” “Bottle Aged,” “Proprietor’s Blend”—and on and on.

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau’s rules on labeling state: “Labels may contain information other than the mandatory label information required…if such information complies with the requirements of such sections and does not conflict with, nor in any manner qualify statements required by this part. In addition, information which is truthful, accurate, and specific, and which is neither disparaging nor misleading may appear on wine labels.” This gives wineries rather wide latitude.

To get a sense of the sort of impact terminology can have on consumers, I gathered a group of friends to assess a number of wines based solely on their labels. To them, “Reserve” clearly invoked a notion of quality; the term, though it has no legal definition in the U.S., suggests a stash of the best wine, set aside for the discerning. As my friend Julie put it, “I’d definitely buy a wine with a name like Proprietor’s Reserve or Vintner’s Reserve because the wine sounds better, more serious.”

Do drinkers understand what “Hand Selected Lots” means? (Another vague term, this one suggests—but doesn’t necessarily mean—that the winemaker walked the vineyards in search of the best fruit.) Among the bottles my focus group considered, the one labeled “Hand Selected Lots” happened to be the cheapest Chardonnay—$10 suggested retail—from Clos du Bois. The winery’s pricier offerings include its $16 “Sonoma Reserve” Chardonnay and a $24 “Calcaire” Russian River Valley Chardonnay that I can only presume takes its name from the calcareous limestone soils much prized by winemakers around the world.

Why would a winery make its cheapest Chardonnay sound like the fanciest? I put this question to a Clos du Bois spokesperson in an email. The reply I received didn’t address that question but noted instead that the winemaking team selects “the best lots from our source vineyards throughout California” for the $10 wine.

My friend Julie isn’t the only wine drinker I know who is susceptible to any wine with “Reserve” on its label. For years my Uncle Noel, a worldly and sophisticated man, made it his self-declared mission to drink only “the reserve wines.”

There are other ways that wineries establish notions of scarcity and selection to sell wines. For example, they sometimes assign them numbers. What did my group of label-reading friends make of the Vineyard Block Estate Limited Block 558 Reserve Chardonnay from California, with the number 04173 on its front label? “That sounds special and rare,” said Holly. “It sounds like a numbered Picasso print,” offered Julie. In fact, this “limited edition” bottle cost me a mere $13.

In some countries in Europe, wines labeled “Reserve” or “Grand Reserve” must, by law, undergo longer aging in the bottle, the barrel or both. In America, where no such rules apply, the term could mean anything—though in some cases the designation “Reserve” is actually attached to wines of high quality. One such example, the consistently impressive Beringer Private Reserve Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, has been produced for more than four decades.

I reached out via email to Mark Beringer, chief winemaker at Beringer Vineyards, to ask if he thinks “Reserve” is at risk of losing meaning. Does he worry about so many inferior wines co-opting the term? He replied that he was less concerned that Beringer Private Reserve wines would be misunderstood than he was about the possibility that consumers would buy some other “Winemaker’s Reserve” bottle and be disappointed by its quality. “The onus and danger is more on the producer of that wine,” he wrote. “Simply calling something reserve doesn’t make it so.”

American wineries aren’t the only ones to employ puffed-up terms with vague meanings to sell their wines. In Argentina, for instance, quite a few wines are labeled “High Altitude.” Made mostly from Cabernet and Malbec in Argentine vineyards that may or may not lie at truly elevated altitudes, these wines range from inexpensive to pricey. Anyone may label a wine “High Altitude,” according to a spokesperson for the Wines of Argentina; the Argentine government does not regulate where and how wineries must cultivate their grapes in order to use the term on a label. As it happened, none of the wine drinkers I polled were impressed by the term. They had no idea what it meant, though Julie speculated that it sounded like a wine to drink après ski.

Equally meaningless, misleading or downright annoying are some of the “descriptive” paragraphs wineries employ on a bottle’s label to sell the wine within. The wordy label of Meiomi Rosé notes “chilly fog” and a “soft hand in the cellar” as key factors determining the character and quality of the wine. On the label of the Chateau St. Jean Cinq Cépages, no fewer than 17 words are used to say very little: “Classically crafted to showcase layers of complexity, this wine blends rich texture with the elegance of Sonoma.”

What in the world is a “soft hand in the cellar,” and what does the purported “elegance of Sonoma” say, really, about how or where the wine was made or what it tastes like? If winemakers and marketers would just stick to words with established and specific meanings, wouldn’t wine consumers be that much better off?

Email Lettie at wine@wsj.com.