November 22, 2019

In a recent survey of 2,000 adults, nearly 30% thought Sauternes was:

A. A French cream sauce for fish or asparagus

B. The French version of sauerkraut

C. A type of orange

D. A type of Mediterranean bird

When the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) recently surveyed 2000 Britons, 29% believed that the famous French sweet wine Sauternes was “a type of orange.” Twenty percent of respondents thought it was a beach resort. And seven percent thought it was a plant. It appears that wine education is not quite yet a fait accompli.

Wine Condom

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that umlauts scare away American wine lovers. For whatever reason, bottles with labels bearing those diacritical points, floating above terms like spätlese or grapes called spätburgunder or müller-thurgau or places named Würzburg or Württemberg, are a turnoff for so many English-speaking consumers. Let it be said, then, that I am somewhat out of step with my fellow Americans. Though I speak almost no German, I love wines with umlauts. And I go to significant lengths to seek them out.”

–Jason Wilson, How German Wine Found Its Sweet Spot, The Washington Post, September 5, 2019

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