I have a relative who mangles everything wine related although he fashions himself as a wine expert. I can’t even repeat what he did to Ducru Beaucaillou, but my favorite was when I poured a Carlisle Carignane Papera Ranch and he told someone else to try the “Ca [as in cat]-rig-NAY-Knee.” I guess that’s the Hawaiian pronunciation where you pronounce every letter.
You have any other good ones? Mer-Lott does not count. That’s too easy. And mispronouncing Gerwurztraminer doesn’t count either. Everyone does that.
I recently told someone that Chardonnay was called Chardonnay because they made it in charred oak barrels. I then had to back track when they believed me.
Probably because the word “nobles,” which is a relatively common word, is pronounced (using your spelling) “noebuls.” Most English words ending in “[-]bles” are pronounced “[-]buls” (bubbles, marbles, etc.).
Many years ago, when I was just starting to get more into wines, we bought a bottle at a fundraiser silent auction. Had no idea what I was buying, but since we were going to be giving the charity the money anyways, I thought I might as well get some wine for it. The bottle was expensive, but I figured it had to at least be halfway decent.
I had started going to weekly open tastings at a local wine shop (and was getting to know the owners, who are very nice folks), so I brought the bottle in to ask them about it. A distributor rep happened to be in the shop at that time. Explained to them the background, and asked them what they could tell me about this bottle of “Hot Brian” I bought. Took them a second, and they all busted out laughing – as they realized it was a bottle of 1990 Château Haut-Brion. They kindly told me that I did OK with that purchase.
Fair point. But “robles” is spanish for “oak”. If someone makes an effort to pronounce a name in the native language, then the same effort should be applied to a non-english name even if the wine comes from the US. No?