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Fourth Growth – Quatrième Crus

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Château Beychevelle besh/vehl Saint-Julien sa~ zhew/lya~ 

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This is for everyone who has plans to travel to London! Even if you are English-speaking, you may be forgiven for not know how to pronounce many of the place-names, because there is often very little to connect the way a name is written with the way it is phonetically pronounced. There are no rules to follow, except perhaps to be on alert that even the simplest names may sound diabolically unlike anything a reasonable person would expect. ...

What do you know about champagne, other than its bubbly, expensive and signals glamour and good times, and possibly, for those who do not know their limits, bad behaviour and a hangover…? Doesn’t everyone know what champagne is? The short answer is ‘no’, and the long answer is ‘noo’. I have heard otherwise perfectly well-educated people say the stupidest things about champagne. It is better to keep your mouth shut and let people suspect you ...

Are you one of those people who says ‘pronunciation doesn’t matter’? Mind, I’m not talking about accent here – accent is the way people from your home-town talk. Pronunciation is the difference between pronouncing ‘cough’ like ‘koff’ or ‘cow’ – and the latter is an easy pronunciation mistake to make if you are foreigner learning English, and your only other reference is ‘bough’. Most people don’t know the difference between accent and pronunciation. While accent may distinguish you ...

Let me start right off the bat by saying a macaron and a macaroon are not one and they same thing, and I’ll take on a debate with anyone, anytime, if they wish disagree with me. The difference between macarons and macaroons starts with pronunciation (and you will find audio on all relevant words at the end of this article) and extends to history, ingredients, technique, appearance, exclusivity, and price, and most importantly, taste and texture. I don’t ...

I tend to spend more time answering queries and adding words to the database than dealing with the blog, so forgive my neglect here. I get a tons of queries in my mail, which I appreciate because it’s the best way to make sure the database is useful, but it’s hugely time-consuming, and lest we forget, there is but one of me.

Don’t let that deter you from sending in queries – you can either email me, ...

Penfold’s Block 42: The World’s Most Pretentious Wine?

There’s been an awful lot of coverage of the Penfolds Limited Edition 2004 Block 42 which is being billed as ‘The World’s Most Expensive Wine’. The price-tag has been set at $168 000.00 for a 750ml ‘ampoule’ of the wine – but when you get through the hype and the spin, it’s clear you aren’t paying that outrageous sum of money for the wine – you are paying it for the ...