What's the Word?
You say tomato, I say Trockenbeerenauslese; the language of wine gets complicated
Posted: Feb 2, 2011 11:00am ET
I’m not a natural with
languages. My editors will tell you I’m still mastering English. Like many Americans,
when I was first learning about wine, the idea of pronouncing words like
Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Gewürztraminer gave me hives.
For beginners, it’s a lot
more fun to drink the stuff than to pronounce it. Many of us end up taking the
challenge, of course, and try to learn the many languages of wine, but it’s not
easy for everyone. I have a cousin who loves wine and travels all over the
world but will forever call it ZinfanDALE. Merlot ends with a hard T for many
casual drinkers, and “Peanut Noir” has become a popular wine with Americans in
recent years.
And those are the easy wines.
I used to think French wine
words were the hardest. Not that Château Latour is tough but once you get to
Beau-Séjour-Bécot or Chambolle-Musigny, your tongue knots up with all those
damned hyphens. I’m still a bit sloppy with Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse de
Lalande, and I’ve actually been there. Once I heard two wine writers argue over
the pronunciation of Haut-Brion. Keep that in mind the next time someone calls
it “Château Hot Brian.” Happens to the best of us.
It doesn’t get any easier in
the rest of the wine world. The Australians try to blame the Aborigines for
wine place names like Wrattonbully and Nuriootpa, but I’m convinced that it’s
all part of an elaborate Aussie drinking game. And Albariño, that tasty little
Spanish white, is so easy to say, rolling off the tongue once you learn it, but
whenever I say the region it hails from, Rías Baixas, I end up dribbling on my
face.
But when it comes to genuine,
smack-your-forehead exasperation, nobody outdoes the Germans. Anyone who labels
a wine Trockenbeerenauslese Mosel-Saar-Ruwer Wehlener Sonnenuhr is just messing
with our heads. Americans would buy a lot more of those crisp German Rieslings
if the names didn’t sound like verbal abuse.
The language of a country
often sounds peculiar to foreign ears, and I’m not suggesting that anyone
apologize for that. Even Trockenbeerenauslese is preferable to “dry berry
selection,” its literal English translation, and certainly it sounds more
exotic, more romantic.
But in the hands of some,
wine becomes almost like idol worship and language creates a sort of hierarchy.
You failed the pronunciation quiz—No soup for you! If you can’t say Grüner
Veltliner you don’t deserve a glass!
It’s not that explicit, perhaps, but wine beginners sense the snub nonetheless.
How then do we help new
drinkers handle these linguistic nightmares? It’s not just a matter of
education, it seems to me. Pronunciation guides abound in books and on the web
and that hasn’t solved it. Maybe we should go Pavlovian and whack the snobs on
the wrist with a ruler whenever they act up. That’s certainly tempting, even if
it isn’t effective.
I’m open to suggestions. What
say you? And in the meantime, while we get our hands around this issue, let’s
just kick back and let new drinkers enjoy their wine first, and leave the
lessons for later.
That’s certainly better than
rolling our eyes whenever someone calls it “Savage-non Blank.”
And just to keep the wine
nerds happy …
Today’s blog was brought to
you by the following words:
Albariño (al-baa-REE-nyo)
Beau-Séjour-Bécot
(boh-say-ZHOOR-bay-koh)
Chambolle-Musigny (shawm-BOHL
MOO-seen-yee)
Châteauneuf-du-Pape
(shah-toh-NUFF due PAHP)
Gewürztraminer
(guh-VERTS-trah-mee-ner)
Grüner Veltliner (GREWH-ner
FEHLT-lee-ner)
Haut-Brion (oh-bree-OHN)
Nuriootpa (new-ree-OOT-pa)
Pichon-Longueville-Comtesse
de Lalande (pee-SHAWN lawng-VEEL kohm-TEHSS duh lah-LAHND)
Pinot Noir (PEE-noe NWAHR)
Rías Baixas (REE-ahs
BUY-shuss)
Sauvignon Blanc (SOH-vin-yon
BLAHNK)
Trockenbeerenauslese
(TROCK-in-BARE-en-OWS-lace-eh)
Wrattonbully (RAT-n-bully)
Zinfandel (ZIN-fun-dell)
Hilarious Tim!