Pinot Meunier – part of the famous ‘Champagne’ supergroup – has announced that it is changing its name in order to gain ‘greater respect as an artist’.
B-List loser
‘I don’t feel as though my partners ever gave me the credit I deserved,’ it announced on Twitter. ‘I just sat in the background providing body while they got all the plaudits.
‘But from now on I’m called Meunier. No more Pinot envy for me.’
Other varieties responded with a mixture of surprise and mockery, saying that this was ‘just the kind of lame-arsed joke you’d expect from such a B-List grape variety.
‘Or, indeed, a free website.’
TGFKAPM
Meunier is said to have considered being known as Squiggle, Symbol, The Grape Formerly Known as Pinot Meunier and P Munny.
‘I’ve felt for a while that I was just there to make money for the Champagne houses,’ Meunier told Fake Booze. ‘So this is me taking a stand and cutting the tweed shackles.’
It was, it said, ‘determined to be taken seriously – just like those other great members of the family, Grigio, Blanc and Pinotage.’
Vin Solo
The variety is planning to make some solo Blanc de Noirs, has an experimental Franco-Italian collaboration lined up with some Glera and is rumoured to be considering a lucrative move into still wine.
‘It’s seen what Pinot Noir and Chardonnay can do without bubbles, and it thinks it can follow their example,’ said Meunier’s agent, Simon Bowels.
‘And frankly if Merlot can make a half-decent solo career for itself, then why not?’
White vin man
Pinot Noir, however, was scathing about its one-time partner.
‘Who do the fans love? Me and Chardonnay, that’s who,’ it told Fake Booze. ‘We’re the stars.
‘Meunier only got the gig because it had a vin.’
Not a proper Pinot
Pinot Noir went on to dismiss Meunier as ‘not even a proper Pinot’, said it would ‘struggle to get any serious recognition’ and even accused it of selling out.
‘I know it’s got a cult following in the UK,’ it told Fake Booze. ‘But that’s because it’s prepared to turn up and knock out a few grapes on a rain-sodden mud-heap in Hampshire.’
Being a true champagne grape, it said, meant ‘having enough self-respect not to ripen properly whatever the conditions.’
Writerly fury
Producers of boring wine books are said to be furious at Meunier’s name change since it means they will have to reprint thousands of pages of information that nobody will ever read.
‘Nothing changes in Champagne. Ever,’ said fizz writer Otto Lysis. ‘So for the last 20 years I’ve been able to sign off the next version of my Giant Champagne Omnibore without having to even read it, never mind check it’s up to date.’
However, Meunier’s decision, he said, had forced him to go through every page for the first time in two decades.
It was, he said, ‘harder going than tasting a flight of Lanson.’
WTF Level 2
The move has also shocked students of methode traditionelle wines all over the world.
‘I’m just going to keep on calling it what I always have done,’ said wine student Ena Phile. ‘Oofer doofer wotsit thingie. Not Pinot Noir… the other one.
‘It’s good enough for WSET Level 2 anyway.’
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