Monday, 19 November, 2012
David Yellen, Winespectator.com
Maybe two isn't quite an official phenomenon, but it does make a strange blip in an otherwise strong current of wine name-dropping fashionability in pop music (see: Cristal, Santa Margherita, Ace of Spades). The songs involve too many layers of role playing to know how Ocean or André 3000 personally feel about wine, but Ocean—or Ocean's character—got one thing right: Wine names can be maddeningly tricky to pronounce.
Evidence suggests that wineries would do well to not make it any easier: A recent study from Brock University found that people were more likely to pay a higher price for wines with harder-to-pronounce names.
Even though we apparently enjoy paying for the privilege of not being able to pronounce a brand, I have to say that, on the consumer end, having to say an unknown wine name out loud can be a humbling experience.