Claret

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (March 2008)

Claret is a name primarily used in British English for red wine from the Bordeaux region of France.

Contents 1 Usage 2 Pronunciation 3 History 4 References

[edit] Usage

Claret derives from the French clairet, ^[1] a now uncommon dark rosé and most common style of wine exported from Bordeaux until the 18th century. It is a protected name within the European Union for describing a red Bordeaux wine, accepted after the British wine trade demonstrated over 300 years' usage of the term.^[1]

Claret is occasionally used in the United States as a semi-generic label for red wine in the style of the Bordeaux, idealy of varietals authentic to the region. The French themselves do not use the term Claret, except for export purposes.

The color "claret" resembles the red hue of Bordeaux wine. The word has become slang for blood, as in "Tapping the Claret" for giving someone a bloody nose.

[edit] Pronunciation

As claret is an English invention it is traditionally pronounced /ˈklærɨt/ KLARR-ət. However, since claret is commonly misbelieved to be French, it is often pronounced /klæˈreɪ/ kla-ray.

[edit] History

The standard style of Bordeaux wine has not always been deep red. It used to be more of a rosé, hence the French clairet, meaning pale. The Plantagenet kingdom, covering England and much of France from 1152 to 1453, encouraged wine trade between the regions. As the taste for clairet developed in England "claret" was adopted to describe it.

In the Late Middle Ages, a claret was a spiced wine-based drink produced by pouring wine, usually a red, over a bag containing a mix of spices. It was similar, and often identical, to hypocras. Spices that were specific to medieval clarets include anise, caraway, cardamom, cinnamon and fennel. The term now more frequently applies to unspiced red Bordeaux wine.

The meaning of "claret" has changed over time to refer to a dry, dark red Bordeaux.^[1]

[edit] References