Silly as it sounds, the pronunciation thing is a major negative for the term catching on. It’s meant to be an American word pronounced to rhyme with “heritage,” yet if you say it correctly, you’re inevitably corrected by some waitress or sales person who is certain you should pronounce it in a faux French way, even though the whole point of the term was to be an American term for American wines of a certain type as distinguished from a French wine.
It’s just a fundamental flaw in the whole adoption of that term that I don’t think will ever be overcome. It’s too bad, because there is some value in having a widely-accepted term to use for Bordeaux-style blends, which are reasonably distinct from the broader category of proprietary reds (that could include anything from cab-syrah blends, Rhone blends, zinfandel field blends, Super Tuscan style blends, or anything else).
I think the best thing at present is just to say on the label what the blend is. If the label says 53% cabernet, 38% merlot, 6% cabernet franc and 3% petit verdot, then that says everything a buyer would need to know, and they can call it whatever they want – Bordeaux blend, left bank blend, meritage, proprietary red, or Monkey Butt.
At a tasting three or so years ago, a guy asked one of the pourers if she had a blend of cabernet and meritage (pronounced as if it were a french word). So the word must be getting out from the Meritage association
Sorry, I meant that the buyer could then call it whatever they want, armed with the knowledge of what exactly is in the bottle.
It’s funny, the experienced wine person gets to where they can easily spot the deliberately impressive word chosen to mark the Bordeaux Blend. Insignia, Isoceles, Matriarch, Pluribus, Tapestry, Cariad, Metisse, etc.
I’m excited to have been part of the thread where this important new entry into the wine lexicon was created.
Should we go all Old World and create a bunch of rules for how many years Monkey Butt has to spend in oak, whether you can irrigate the vineyards, the minimum and maximum percentage of different varietals, etc.?
Or maybe create a classification system based on market prices? "Grand Vin du Monkey Butt – Cinquième Cru"
Every time an idiot customer who doesn’t even know the definititon of “Meritage,” whether it be the “Official Association” one or a more general one (blend of 2 or more grape varieties traditionally grown in Bordeaux is how I would define it) comes in asking for a “Meritage wine” and will only accept one that has the word on the label, I am reminded of how utterly useless this term really is.
Big -1 from the US Government, department of Treasury. ‘Claret’ will be rejected on any label submitted that has not previously (grandfathered) used the term.
Kind of hard to get everyone behind a term if you can’t put it on the label of anything.
Yup. I thought for a long time about making up such a name to call my blend and had a long list of names but in the end I thought Meritage just made more sense, plus I liked the fact it has a definite meaning. I’m surprised to see here that there is some backlash against it.
I can’t speak for anyone else here, but I don’t perceive any backlash against it, in the sense that anyone would have an unfavorable impression of a wine or be less likely to buy it because it says “meritage” on it.
I think we’re just discussing some of the shortcomings in the use of that word in general – paying for the right, the pronunciation annoyance, lack of buy in by top wineries and by wine consumers, etc.
But you said it seems to be working fine for you and your customers, so that’s all you should care about. Though you should give some thought to whether you want to switch to Monkey Butt instead – I think you could still qualify for Grand Vin du Monkey Butt Deuxièmes Cru (second growth).
![[welldone.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/fc9709a841aa9379fd892a9cf0b535b05f473b86.gif "[welldone.gif]"){kind=small}
