Lexicon of Home Wine Terms

[Rebel Rose]

Suzanne F

But I'm sorry, Jamie: "yummy" is our highest encomium for wine that we like. Cuts right through all the winespeak bullshit.

Hey, good on ya.  Whinies  have no vocabulary of their own. It's a lexicon of negative space and stolen moments.

All right, Jamie, I'll accept that challenge!

We do have our own lexicon, although it seldom spreads farther than our house. On a recent sales trip to San Fran I blurted out "cabalicious" to the extreme merriment of a restaurant owner who swears he's going to use it. Egad.

Here are some of our favorite winespeak terms . . .

Cork dork = insufferable wine nerd

Tractor man = a winemaker that actually works in the vineyard

Gerber = very unpleasant green character, ala Gerber baby food pureed beans

Cabalicious = an interesting varietal produced to taste more mainstream or like Cabernet. (In the conversation above, we were talking about how many California sangioveses are cabalicious, instead of offering spicy fruit and food-friendly acid.)

Shiraz-ful Cab (pronounced sure-awful-cab) = a really good cab/syrah blend

Wiggy fruit = referring to unprocessed grapes. Earwigs are a positive sign--they mean no pesticides were used. Organically grown fruit is often very 'wiggy.

Anyone else here have their own terms?

[RobInAustin]

Off the top of my head:

It don't suck : the ultimate superlative for a wine. First used to describe a DRC "La Tache"...now applied as the non-plus-ultra.

"This is a clam sofa" : Anyone with more money than sense, taste or wine knowledge. They are usually the ones ordering the current release vintage of Opus One in an expensive restaurant or walking into my store asking for all the wines I have that Parker scored over 90 points regardless of WHAT that wine might be. Origin is an old television commercial featuring a hideous lady whining "This is a Clam Sofa! It cost more than the original..." pointing to a "clam sofa" equally hideous...

Cheers,

Rob