Ed Rasimus wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I can usually figure out wine pronounciations after the time I spent
> in Europe and traveling the homeland. I've had some misteps, but
> eventually learned that Moet was MO-eht and Williamette didn't a
> "sweet potato" in the middle of it.
>
> After a couple of years of thinking I knew how to say Viognier, a
> friend pronounced it differently. Self-rightous to the bitter end, I
> simply registered that he was a pompous twit and I was probably right,
> but courteously didn't correct him. (See what a nice guy I can be?) >
> Today I cranked up my Cellar software and dug through the menus to
> find the pronounciation download choice for tiny little AV files. It
> was scratchy, but reinforced my correctness. When I listened very
> carefully, the voice was saying, "vee-ah-nyeer".
>
> Vindicated, I still went to Google to back up my correctness. There I
> found multiple phonetic references indicating that it was properly
> pronounced, "vee-ohn-yay". I was apparently wrong for the past several > years.
>
> Both pronounciations seemed to indicate the varietal name does not
> have an accented syllable.
>
> So, good friends, please tell me how to properly pronounce the name of
> this grape that I'm finding increasingly on my short list for summer > quaffing.
>
From Strat's Place, Living Audio Wine Dcitionary
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Sort of sounds like a shorter "o", rather than "ah", though, to me. d.