08 December 2008

Pinotage Pronunciation - how do you say Pinotage?


I have been using Feedjit for the past few months on this blog. If you scroll far enough down you’ll see the Feedjit Live Traffic Feed panel on the right side.

It shows the country and the link that visitors come from and any search term they used to find The Pinotage Club.

One of the most common searches is for Pinotage Pronunciation and this post from September 2005 is found.

I thought that I should post every now and again specifically to answer the questions people are interested in, so let’s start with Pinotage Pronunciation.

The correct way to say Pinotage is with a short ‘i’ sound, exactly the way you say pin when talking about drawing pins or pins-and-needles. The tage part is pronounced to rhyme with ‘large’, so put them together you get

Pin no targe

What about all the websites that tell you that the Pin of Pinotage is pronounced Peen? Wrong, each and every one of them! They’ve obviously never heard the word spoken in its homeland of South Africa and they are thinking of the way the French say Pinot Noir. Now, it is true Pinot Noir is one of the parents of Pinotage, but Pinotage is not a French variety. It is a South African variety and the South African growers call it ‘Pinnotarge’ -- never ever peeno.

And for final proof, as if any should be needed: Graham Beck Winery’s lifestyle Pinotage is simply labelled as ‘Pinno’.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for the correction. It is always a good day when you learn something new.

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  2. Thank you! I have been chastised by Americans, who are convinced it is pronounced: "pee-no-tayge".

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  4. Meritage is supposed to be pronounced as rhyming with heritage. Apparently Pinotage does not follow the same rule.

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  5. Hi Unknown
    -Meritage is a combination or Merit and Heritage and meant to be pronounced like Heritage with a 'M' instead of 'H'. The pronunciation of Pinotage, as given above, is how it is pronounced in South Africa.

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