Puckery

Used to describe a wine that is so high in tannin that it causes your mouth to pucker with dryness. Most often, the wine will have been made from insufficiently ripe grapes.

Although wine lovers are generally pretty easy going, certain things really piss them off. Which of the following is not one of the issues most likely to aggravate wine enthusiasts?

A. Serving cheap wine at a party

B. Pronouncing Moët “Mo-AY” instead of “Mo-ETTE”

C. Using stemless glass water tumblers for wine

D. Calling all sparkling wines “Champagne”

Referring to all sparkling wines as “Champagne” is pretty bad in our book. But it did not come up in a recent survey by The Drinks Business as one of the top ten things that drive wine enthusiasts crazy. The other three did. Not pronouncing the “t” in Moët was considered as bad as pronouncing the “t” in merlot.

Come, send round the wine, and leave points of belief
To simpleton sages and reasoning fools;
This moment’s a flower too fair and brief
To be wither’d and stain’d by the dust of the schools.
Your glass may be purple, and mine may be blue,
But, while they are fill’d from the same bright bowl,
The fool who would quarrel for difference of hue,
Deserves not the comfort they shed o’er the soul.

—Thomas Moore (1779-1852), Irish poet, from Irish Melodies, Vol. II

Puckery

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