Wine Pronunciation websites

This is a useful site, in that you can hear a French person pronounce the name of the estate, and with proper names in French there is really no way you can predict completely how they will be pronounced until you hear them. But there is at least one miscue here. The speaker does not sound the ‘s’ in Cos d’Estournel, whereas the correct dialectal pronunciation does.

Actually several of the pronunciations are dubious, but at least the tone is correct, and in case of doubt she tends to pronounce them the way a French person would “intuitively” do, e.g. not pronouncing the “s” as the end of Cos. It comes from a southern dialect indeed, and people in the South have a tendency not to keep the ending “s” silent for names of local origin. Anyhow she also pronounces “Durfort-Vivens” as if it was written “Durfort-Viviens” – she might be right (I have no idea what the proper pronunciation is) but it sounds weird given the spelling. She also pronounces “Jonqueyres” as if it was written “Jonquieyres”, etc. I wouldn’t focus too much on that really, the tone and general rhythm are more important in my view… there’s not ONE right pronunciation in France, or in many other languages, it really depends on who’s speaking.

I need one for Burgundy?

I recall someone posted a pronunciation guide in NSFW (of all places) a while back. I don’t know if I could find it or not.

Brian, try me on Burgundy. I asked lots of questions when I was there. Mainly, “X” is abnormal, so “Aloxe” is “a loss” (uh LOSS). Most of the non-X words are plain old classic French pronunciation, but not everyone took French, or visited there… I’m hoping for a Brian Buzzini 95 point rating, BTW.

Ok… Perrieres Louis Michel Vaudesir Dauvissat Montee de Tonnerre Vaillons Mont de Milieu

Perrieres pear-ee-AIR Louis Michel Looey Mi-SHELL Vaudesir Voh-de-ZEER Dauvissat Doh-vee-SAH(t) (sometimes I say the “t”)(French people correct me?) Montee de Tonnerre mon-TAY duh ton-AIR Vaillons vye-YON Mont de Milieu mawn duh meel-YUH The vowel in “lieu” doesn’t exactly exist in English. It’s a little like the schwa, the upside down “e”. Halfway between YUH and YEH. Again, French people, au secours…

Don’t know if this is still in print, but it is the best little book on pronunciation: The Pocket Guide to Wine Pronunciation by C. D. Thomas [u]http://openlibrary.org/books/OL11804908M/The_Pocket_Guide_to_Wine_Pronunciation[/u]

The t is silent. As for the others, most of those have diphthongs (-ion, -ieu) that I wouldn’t even try guessing how they can be “phonetically written” in English.

What about Leroy? It is le RWAH?

yes. That and some other tips are here http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/h … names.html

I hope I’m not breaching any of the board’s self-promotion rules in announcing that for pronunciation of Burgundy appellations and domaines, I’ve just uploaded an audio/text guide to my company’s site:

http://burgundylist.com/burgundy-wine-pronunciation.html

Please Note:

I believe this is reasonably comprehensive for the appellations, but certainly not exhaustive as far as producers are concerned. For the record, I used Clive Coates’ lists for selecting the domaines.

If there are any major errors in the pronunciations, please flag them up. (However, pedants who feel inclined to point out some subtlety of inflection unique to the northern villages of Côte de Nuits, please don’t). This guide has been produced for the Chinese-speaking audience. The voice talent is a French wine journalist, and whilst we did give a nod to well-known local Burgundian pronunciations such as that of Fixin, the approach was to use standard pronunciation with clarity. (If you’re a winemaker and we’ve butchered the sound of your family name, sorry!)