{"id":1574,"date":"2020-06-29T17:30:41","date_gmt":"2020-06-29T17:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1574"},"modified":"2020-06-29T17:30:41","modified_gmt":"2020-06-29T17:30:41","slug":"a-guide-to-pronouncing-french-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1574","title":{"rendered":"A Guide to Pronouncing French Wines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>We know many Americans who are dedicated wine lovers and who enjoy going wine tasting.\u00a0 They love French wines but can\u2019t pronounce them properly. Here\u2019s a little guide by <\/em>Power Tasting<em> to help American wine tasters through the thickets of pronouncing French wines.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For some reason, we Americans find the red wines of France easier to pronounce. We have no problems with Pinot Noir, Cabernet, Merlot and Malbec.\u00a0 If there\u2019s one that needs a little help, it\u2019s Petit Verdot, the blending grape of Bordeaux.\u00a0 It\u2019s pronounced peh-TEE VAIR-doe.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sauvignon Blanc<\/strong> \u2013 The legend, perhaps apocryphal, is that Robert Mondavi decided not to call his Sauvignon Blanc by its proper name because he thought Americans couldn\u2019t pronounce Sauvignon. He called it Fum\u00e9 Blanc instead.\u00a0 The irony is that we all do very well with Sauvignon but get the Blanc part wrong.\u00a0 Most Americans say \u201cblonk\u201d.\u00a0 The right way is \u201cblah\u201d with your voice going down at the end.\u00a0 The \u201cc\u201d doesn\u2019t get mentioned at all.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Chardonnay <\/strong>\u2013 We\u2019ve got that one right.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/chard.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1575 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/chard-300x149.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"318\" srcset=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/chard-300x149.png 300w, https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/chard-768x381.png 768w, https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/chard-1024x508.png 1024w, https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/chard.png 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Photo courtesy of the Wine Scholar Guild.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>S\u00e9millon <\/strong>\u2013 This is the primary white grape of Bordeaux and as such deserves respect. Saying \u201cseh-MILL-un\u201d is not right.\u00a0 It\u2019s pronounced \u201csay-MEE-yon\u201d and it\u2019s even sweeter when it\u2019s made into Sauternes, which, by the way, is pronounced \u201cSO-turn\u201d.\u00a0 Do not pronounce the \u201cs\u201d at the end.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Champagne <\/strong>\u2013 This is a tough one. Americans know how to say \u201cSHAM-pain\u201d.\u00a0 But the French say \u201cshahm-PAH-nya\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0This is one case where Americans are better off with the American pronunciation.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Loire whites <\/strong>\u2013 We\u2019ll let Americans off the hook with the \u201cr\u201d in Vouvray, since that back-of-the-throat thing isn\u2019t even universal among French speakers. But Sancerre is \u201cSAHN-sair\u201d and Muscadet is \u201cMOS-ca-day\u201d.\u00a0 And there\u2019s Chenin Blanc.\u00a0 We\u2019ve already covered the Blanc part; the first word is sheh-NAN and you never pronounce the \u201cc\u201d at the end of Blanc.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rh\u00f4ne whites <\/strong>\u2013 Marsanne and Roussanne are pieces of cake, as long as you pronounce the \u201ca\u201d in each of them as \u201cah\u201d. Viognier is \u201cVEE-on-yay\u201d.\u00a0 We think Americans had these down anyway.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Alsatian whites <\/strong>\u2013 No problem with Riesling, but Gew\u00fcrztraminer needs work. For one thing, it\u2019s a German grape, not a French one.\u00a0 For another, that umlaut over the \u201cu\u201d causes no end of trouble. \u00a0Finally, there are several acceptable variations on how to pronounce it.\u00a0 So here goes: ge-VOORTZ-tram-un-er.\u00a0 Except for that pesky umlaut, which makes you try to say OO and EE at the same time.\u00a0 Americans, stick with OO.\u00a0 Now, there\u2019s a family of German grapes called Traminer, pronounced the way you\u2019d think it should be, TRAM-in-er.\u00a0 Gew\u00fcrz means spicy, so Gew\u00fcrztraminer means spicy Traminer.\u00a0 But that confuses the pronunciation for some people, who would prefer to say ge-VOORTZ-tra-MEE-ner.\u00a0 Both pronunciations are correct, which is why most Americans just say \u201cge-WURTZ\u201d and get on with it.\u00a0 You really can\u2019t blame them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We know many Americans who are dedicated wine lovers and who enjoy going wine tasting.\u00a0 They love French wines but can\u2019t pronounce them properly. Here\u2019s a little guide by Power Tasting to help American wine tasters through the thickets of pronouncing French wines. For some reason, we Americans find the red wines of France easier &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1574\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A Guide to Pronouncing French Wines<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1576,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}