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Battle of the somms: wine geek vocabulary

PostPosted: Sun Dec 23, 2012 9:58 pm
by Robin Garr
Fun article in today's NY Times. A lot of these terms won't be unfamiliar to wine geeks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opini ... =all&_r=1&

Re: Battle of the somms: wine geek vocabulary

PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 4:03 am
by Steve Slatcher
Anyone here understand "WINE PX"?

Re: Battle of the somms: wine geek vocabulary

PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 8:41 am
by Robin Garr
Steve Slatcher wrote:Anyone here understand "WINE PX"?

No, and neither does Google. I intuited it as an extreme level of wine geek, though.

Re: Battle of the somms: wine geek vocabulary

PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 9:31 am
by Rahsaan
From their earlier column they mentioned PX as restaurant lingo for important diner:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/dining/what-restaurants-know-about-you.html?pagewanted=all

So this seems to be the wine extension.

They didn't say the exact origin, but I assumed it was 'person extraordinaire/extraordinary/extra' or something like that.

Re: Battle of the somms: wine geek vocabulary

PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2012 5:19 pm
by Steve Slatcher
Ah, yes. In the article you linked to, Rahsaan, it says

The restaurant may have given you the freebie because you are a FOM (friend of the manager) or a PX, a person extraordinaire. PX used to be V.I.P., but most restaurants stopped using that label years ago because it was so widely recognized and offended non-V.I.P. customers who heard it being used. Some PX’s are also flagged NR, for never refuse.


So a wine PX is totally different to a PX wine.

Re: Battle of the somms: wine geek vocabulary

PostPosted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 4:14 pm
by Keith M
Levi Dalton's (hilarious as always) take:

How Sommeliers used to talk before they were called Somms

Though the pedant in me must note that as bald as he may have been, a president Ben Franklin never was . . .

Re: Battle of the somms: wine geek vocabulary

PostPosted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:22 pm
by GeoCWeyer
Great article