Explanation for word "vinotheque"

Here's my guess:

The "theque" bit comes from the Latin "theca", meaning "case". And as cases are often used to house collections, it has come to mean "collection" in many European languages. Thus you have pinoteca in Italian,for art gallery, and the Enoteca in Sienna, which houses a collection of wines. There are also variants on biblioteque for library (a collection of books) in various languages.

So a vinotheque is somewhere with a collection of wines.

IANAE (I am not an etymologist)

Good explanation, Steve.

On a related note, in Austria Nikolaihof occasionally puts out wines that they've aged in their cellars for many years, these are noted as "Vinothek" (Michael Pronay, please correct me if that's inaccurate). Similarly, the Dom Perignon late-release "Oenotheque" bottlings usually fetch a premium over regular releases of same vintage.

Stavo dormendo su un bancale di lambro quando il post di Steve Slatcher mi desto'

Pinacoteca, AFAIK

And you look like you should know:-)

As someone who seems to be Italian by your newsreader setup, would you agree that the "teca" bit implies a collection of some sort?

"-teca" (it), "-theque" (en, fr), "-thek" (de) all derive from greek "theke": Bin, box, depository, case, cabinet, closet et al.

M.

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Thanks, Michael - you always provide insight! Anders

I thought a "vinotheque" was simply a wine bar the jacked up its pricec 50% just because of the catchy french-sounding name.

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I wonder why don't I see more than two replies to my post... Only the ones from Vilco and DaleW.

Please let me know if there were any other. It seems that I must change news server as the messages get lost constantly.

Thanks for the answers,

Taavi

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I see 5 replies to your post... You could try google to find them. Anders

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