HOW TO PRONOUNCE FRENCH WINE NAMES

French wines are considered to be some of the best in the world, but when
faced with an extensive wine list, for those of us who do not speak
French like a native, ordering can be quite a daunting task.

How to Pronounce French Wine Names like a Sommelier

Well, let’s start with the Sommelier. So – Mel – Ee – Ay. Perhaps that’s a
bit basic, but at least you won’t get a red face when you summon him to
ask for a nice Chateau Neuf Du Pape.

There are so many wonderful
French wines that it’s possibly best to acquaint ourselves with the
most widely available and popular, for the time being.

Burgundy and Bordeaux OR Bur-Gun-Deh and Bor-Doh.

Burgundy and Bordeaux are two of the most famous wine producing regions in
France. And as Bordeaux is the largest it is a good place to start.
Bor-Doh is probably the easiest and most accurate way of pronouncing
Bordeaux. french.about.com/od/vocabulary/a/audiodictionary.htm is quite a
useful tool to give some idea of how certain words should sound.

Graves is a well known Bordeaux wine. Unlike the English word grave, as in a
burial site, the ‘A’ in Graves is pronounced ‘aah’ as in ‘apple’. It is
in fact named after a certain type of gravel brought by rivers from
higher ground and on which the vines are grown. Hence the name
‘Graves’. Another is Medoc. In this case the ‘E’ is said like an ‘A’
like so..May-doc. Perhaps the most well known Medoc of all is Chateaux
Margaux. Ernest Hemmingway famously named his daughter after this wine.
Indeed it is pronounced as the girl’s name Margot or Margo. It is
interesting that another famous wine Petrus, Pay-Troos (as in goose)is
also from this area.

Burgundy produces so many wonderful wines
that it is difficult to decide what to include! However, the most
famous French wine of all is held to be Romanee Conti or Ro-Ma-Nee
Con-tay,so as a starting point it is ideal. French wine names, like
Chablis a famed dry white, pronounced Shah-Blee show that French wines
are not always difficult either.

French wine is such a huge subject, I hope that this has given you the urge to learn more. Try a nice glass of Beaujolais, another famous export of the Burgundy region..
Bo-jo-lay, try softening the ‘J’ to almost ‘sh’ with a ‘z’ zsh. Perhaps
a Fleurie, Flerry which rhymes with berry, or the best beaujolais of
all Gamay, Gah-May.

How to Pronounce the French Wine names of other regions.

With some of the more difficult wine names, such as Chateau Neuf du Pape
from the Cotes du Rhone region it is simply a matter of breaking the
words down. Cotes (as in coat, overcoat) Du (rhymes with too or two)
Rhone (rhymes with bone) and Sha-Toe-Neff Du (as above) Pape (
pronounced pap,sounds like slap) is useful as a guide.

The Loire Valley is worth mentioning for Sancerre, Son (as in don) Serre (the ‘c’
is not hard like in cheese but soft as in cerise, and if you can roll
the ‘r’s’ so much the better), also Fitou, Fee-Too and Chinon,
pronounced Shee-Non.

There are many, many French wines worth
mentioning, hopefully this will inspire you to master the pronunciation,
and perhaps sample some more of them.