Wine Varietals Are NOT Proper Nouns...

[Brady_Daniels]

I like this thread almost as much as wine from Piedmonte.

[Andrew_Kaufman]

I think some on this thread have confused “variety” with “varietal”.

Wine Words: Variety vs. Varietal

[M_Officer]

I agree that Haas should be capitalized, like McIntosh apples and Muller-Thurgau, because they are adapted proper names. If you can verify the existence of Monsieur Cabernet, I’ll give you that, too. >

It’s also Red Delicious apple and Early Girl tomato. By the way, I was set straight on this issue a number of years ago by Dr. Carole Meredith. Given that she was a grape geneticist and professor in the V&E department of UC Davis, I think I’ll stick with what she told me.

[Robert.A.Jr]

I’m so confused.

Do I capitalize the “w” in white Zinfandel? I’m having trouble serving it right now.

[Brian_Tuite]

@Xavier Lavoipierre

I have a Headache . . .

FIFY!

[John_Morris]

@Robert Alfert

I’m so confused.

Do I capitalize the “w” in white Zinfandel? I’m having trouble serving it right now.

I realized this morning that Thoroughbred is the preferred spelling for the breed of horse. So maybe I’ll have to reconsider my position. And granny smith (lower case) seems odd.

[Mark_C]

@Alan Rath

@Craig Gleason

I’ve heard that it’s okay to acidify or capitalize, but not both.

Just because we don’t reply to all of these doesn’t mean we’re not laughing our butts off

+2

Humor by (reverse?) osmosis…

[A_So]

@John Morris

@M Officer

Actually, all plant variety (not varietal) names should be capitalized. Hence, it’s Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, etc, just as it’s Minneola tangelo, Granny Smith apple, Haas avocado, etc. But note that it is Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, Pinot gris, etc. Basically, you do not capitalize French and Italian words denoting black, grey, and white when applied to grape cultivars.

Wow! No caps on the “noir” or “blanc.” This is really getting arcane.

And what’s the convention if we decide to call it black Pinot, grey Pinot, white Pinot, or miller’s Pinot?

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Barry Sunderland

‘No’ on Cabernet, Syrah, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, or Merlot…

‘Yes’ on Bordeaux, Champagne, Madeira, Burgundy, or Sherry…

Come to think of it, I really, REALLY like wines that ARE proper nouns!

Of course it’s “yes on” Bordeaux, Champagne, Madeira, Burgundy, or Sherry; none of those are varietals or varieties.

[Scott_Brunson]

@Scott Fitzgerald

There’s nothing more fun than drinking a nice glass of wine while reading a post on correct grammar usage. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz…

funnier if you had mispelled a word (like grammar)

[GregT]

And yes, I’ve been guilty of ‘capping’ varietals.

Varietal is an adjective. Variety is a noun. And in the case of wine grapes, both seem to be used incorrectly almost always.

In any event, the way to use varietal is as follows: “That bottle of 100 percent Merlot is a monovarietal wine.”

As to capitalization, there are people who think about and agree on all this stuff. For example, there’s the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants and there’s the Royal Horticultural Society in Great Britain. There are several organizations but for English, those two are important.

Here are some easy-to-remember rules. In horticultural writing, you capitalize the name of the cultivar.

What is a cultivar? It is something that has been propagated by man.

So let’s say we categorize a plant as follows: genus, species, cultivar. With a wine grape it goes as follows:

(BTW, the kingdom is plantae. It’s not a fungus or an animal.)

The genus is vitus

The species is vinifera, so you would say vitus vinifera.

The cultivar is Marselan

And the name of the cultivar, be it Jonathan or Red Delicious or Early Girl or Merlot, is capitalized.

Now to the use of the word “variety”. That’s not as easy.

Generally, a “variety” is something that occurs in nature and most importantly, will reproduce true to type. Thus, if you plant a seed, you’ll get the same plant. With things like roses and apples of course, that doesn’t happen.

If I plant the seeds from my rose or my apple, who knows what I’ll get? Once in a while I’ll get something wonderful but generally it won’t be as nice as the original apple. So we reproduce those plants by taking cuttings that we root or by grafting them over to some other rootstock.

Every apple you buy in a store is from a grafted tree or a propagated tree, and same with roses. In other words, they are clones.

Same with grapes for grape vines. A “cultivar” is a cultivated variety. It is unique and all the versions you see are clones of the original. So you always capitalize the name. Maybe the New York Times doesn’t, but they don’t write for scientific journals either. They write for the mass audience. In that case, they should not capitalize Xerox any more either, since many people use it as a synonym for “copy”.

The problem with wine grapes is that people have become so used to using the word “variety” that it would be impossible to convince them to use the word “cultivar”, which is what they should be using.

So while we all know that “varietal” is wrong, how comfortable would anyone be talking about the “cultivars”, even though they’d be correct?

[David_Wright]

@John Morris

David - Interesting stuff about the birds, but I would quarrel with your argument that the grape names are proper nouns. I’m not sure they refer to “an individual person, place, or organization.” They strike me as describing categories.

Whose definiton is this, John? Here is a more orthodox definition (courtesy of Random House via dictionary.com):

proper noun
noun
Grammar . a noun that is used to denote a > particular > person, place, or > thing> , as Lincoln, Sarah, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Hall.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/proper+noun

And no, species are not categories. They are singular entities that occur in nature. When we recognize them, we give them scientific names, and in many cases we also formalize common-language names for ease of discussion.

Many of the style conventions favored by newspapers were instituted to save time in typesetting, and to save ink and space on the page. If one is writing for a newspaper or other publication that follows these style conventions, then it is “correct” to not capitalize formal, proper names of species, because that is what the editor will demand. But if one is writing for a more enlightened audience – one that knows what a species is, and that the proper names names of species denote a paritcular entity just as precisely as the scientific name for that species – then it is correct to capitalize thse formal names; after all, they are proper nouns. Capitalizing these names performs the valuable function of informing the reader that the name he is reading is a formal name.

Formal names of grape varieties/cultivars (and the wines made from them) are also proper nouns, It makes sense to capitalize them when writing for an audience that understands that these names are formal, proper nouns. If newpapermen and their ilk do not, that is merely a reflection of the arbitrary style rules they must follow, whereby some proper nouns are capitalized and others are not.

So, no, I am not arguing that wine lovers should follow arcane rules of ornithology and botany. I am arguing that we should follow the useful, general convention of capitalizing formal, proper names of grape varieties, just as we capitalize other proper names. And the newspaper style rules are actually more difficult for a layperson to use: go back to Barry’s post that started this thread, and note that by these rules some grapes names are capitzlized and some are not. It’s much simpler – and more informative – to simply capitalize 'em all. Even if it does use more ink and more column space…

[David_Wright]

@Philip N. Jones

Seems inconsistent to state that it is a matter of style, and then to argue that “people who know what they are doing” always capitalize. The majority rule seems to not capitalize, for readability if nothing else.
Phil Jones

See my reply to John above.

[GregT]

Oh, and David is correct above - the name of a cultivar is indeed a proper noun.

Sorry Barry!

We don’t have an analog in animals/humans yet, but if we were to take parts of Barry and make six clones, we would end up with six Barrys. Wouldn’t you want us to capitalize the name?

[John_Morris]

@David Wright

Many of the style conventions favored by newspapers were instituted to save time in typesetting, and to save ink and space on the page. If one is writing for a newspaper or other publication that follows these style conventions, then it is “correct” to not capitalize formal, proper names of species, because that is what the editor will demand. But if one is writing for a more enlightened audience – one that knows what a species is, and that the proper names names of species denote a paritcular entity just as precisely as the scientific name for that species – then it is correct to capitalize thse formal names; after all, they are proper nouns. Capitalizing these names performs the valuable function of informing the reader that the name he is reading is a formal name.

Formal names of grape varieties/cultivars (and the wines made from them) are also proper nouns, It makes sense to capitalize them when writing for an audience that understands that these names are formal, proper nouns. If newpapermen and their ilk do not, that is merely a reflection of the arbitrary style rules they must follow, whereby some proper nouns are capitalized and others are not.

So, no, I am not arguing that wine lovers should follow arcane rules of ornithology and botany. I am arguing that we should follow the useful, general convention of capitalizing formal, proper names of grape varieties, just as we capitalize other proper names. And the newspaper style rules are actually more difficult for a layperson to use: go back to Barry’s post that started this thread, and note that by these rules some grapes names are capitzlized and some are not. It’s much simpler – and more informative – to simply capitalize 'em all. Even if it does use more ink and more column space…

I’m not sure who the more “enlightened” audience is to which you refer or what the more “general convention” is. (It sounds like you consider yourself a member of the Enlightened species.) The readers of the NYT, WSJ and FT are pretty sophisticated overall (as the demographic stats their ad sales people will be happy to supply). And many more people read newspapers than read birdwatching manuals, so I think journalistic style qualifies as more general.

My view is that there are different styles for different contexts, all arbitrary in some sense, though many are sensible and reflect a lot of thought. I have no quarrel with capitalizing species for an audience that cares and knows that that denotes a defined species. But I think it’s silly to think that that rule has to apply when writing for broader audiences, or that anyone who shuns capitalization of grape names is somehow a knave.

[David_Wright]

By enlightened, I simply mean people who know what these names mean – birders, etc. in the case of birds, wine lovers, etc. in the case of grapes and wines.

[Nolan_E]

@Scott Brunson

@Scott Fitzgerald

There’s nothing more fun than drinking a nice glass of wine while reading a post on correct grammar usage. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz…

funnier if you had mispelled a word (like grammar)

Did you ironically misspell misspelled?

[ShermanH]

Just to confuse the matter and make everybody’shead hurt, how do you talk about plurals? If it’s attorneys general, shouldn’t it be pinots noir?

[J_a_y_H_a_c_k]

@Craig Gleason

. . . more perfect . . .

WARNING - severe thread drift (and ignoring the question of whether “more perfect” is as bad as “very unique”), we have this grammar joke.

A man arrives at Logan Airport in Boston and gets into a cab. Wanting to have the local fish delicacy for dinner, he asks the cabbie, “Do you know where I can get Scrod?” The cabbie replies, “I’ve been asked that question many times, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive.”

[John_Morris]

@David Wright

By enlightened, I simply mean people who know what these names mean – birders, etc. in the case of birds, wine lovers, etc. in the case of grapes and wines.

I think you give most wine lovers too much credit for their knowledge of botany.

(I’m sure that Greg Tatar really does know all about this stuff, since he grafts different fruits onto the same tree. So I will grant you and him special capitalization rights when I’m named the WB style czar and otherwise ban capitals for varieties. I should warn you that I’ll also allow the use of “varietal” as a noun. )