"Sammy" in ...
>
> "Leo Bueno" in
> ...
> >
> > Are Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Riesling,
> > etc., grape "varieties" or "varietals"?
> >
> > My ear says "varieties" but many folk in the wine
> > world say "varietals".
> >
> > What's the correct usage?
> . . .
> I'm going to copy your original post to a generally well
> educated and (in?)famously pedantic non- wine
> newsgroup. I post any interesting repliesback here.
>

Well, a pedantic non-wine newsgroup is sure to settle it. ;-)

More seriously, a non-wine group might be at sea, because it's a term of
specialty. (I said at sea, not silent.)

In US English, varieties of grapes are sometimes called "varietals" by
people in the business. The latter word was popularized originally in the
reform effort after US Prohibition, toward labeling US wines varietally
grather than generically. Jancis Robinson in the Oxford Companion to Wine
insists that the word "varietal" is specific to wines, not grapes -- thus,
land is planted to the Zinfandel variety that goes into our Zinfandel
varietal wine. (Pedantic enough?)

(Schoonmaker and Marvel argue passionately for varietal, and also
geographical, naming for US wines in _American Wines,_ 1941. In that book
they use "varietal" for wines and "variety" for grapes.)

It's because of the old generic naming that the name "Chianti," for example,
retains some unjust stigma in the US. Historically the US wine industry
(and not just US), outside the control of the original regions using these
names, took liberties in labeling cheap commodity products with names of
important European regional wines like "Chianti" and "Chablis" and "Rhine
Wine" and "Sauterne" [no s] and "Burgundy," so that many US consumers came
to think of cheap bulk wines when they heard these names, rather than
thinking of the proud and classy wines the names came from.

-- Max