Monday 24 July 2017

Translating Tintamarre


Emile serving Tintamarre to Joy and Jheanne.

Our friends at Chateau Gaudrelle very kindly invited us to the launch of their new wine, a natural sparkling chenin blanc that they have dubbed Tintamarre. We asked our South African friends Joy and Jheanne if they wanted to go and they were delighted, since they hadn't had a chance to visit a winery so far while they've been here. The wine is gently bubbly, fresh and fruity. We liked it a lot (I bought a case for our apéro yesterday).

Rillettes (pork paste) and Sainte Maure de Touraine goats cheese to go with the wine.

We asked Laetitia what 'tintamarre' translated as and she thought a bit and said 'hurly-burly', but acknowledged that she'd need to double check that. It is what you get when you put the word into Google, but having consulted widely (well, Christophe at l'Image and Jill, who looked in her big serious dictionary...) I don't think it's the best translation. We think it's more like 'hullabaloo', as it doesn't seem to refer to movement, but to noise, particularly a din or racket with percussive or chinking glass sounds.

Chateau Gaudrelle Tintamarre.

Sadly, Joy and Jheanne returned to South Africa today. The town of Preuilly had adopted them for the duration of their stay, and they received considerable encouragement to buy a house here and move here permanently. I reckon they'd easily win a vote of 'most popular new resident' if such a thing was held. We will truly miss Joy and Jheanne a lot. Thank goodness we've got a ready supply of Tintamarre available, to raise a glass to them on a regular basis.

8 comments:

chm said...

Here is what CNRTL says about tintamarre Grand bruit dépourvu d'harmonie, ensemble de sons éclatants et discordants provenant d'une même source ou de plusieurs sources différentes.

Le Pré de la Forge said...

AKA: a bleedin' racket! Or as Susan has described above.....

Le Pré de la Forge said...

Tintamare is one of the slipperiest wines I think I have drunk.... a very delightful, delicious and ruddy dangerous tipple indeed! Well done the Gaudrelle team....

Unknown said...

Cacophony?
Jocelyn

Susan said...

Cacophony is good I think.

chm said...

I just love the bleedin' racket!

chm said...

As I understand it, tintamarre gives an idea of loudness, and the louder the better. Cacophony is very good but lacks the idea of loudness, I think. As I answered Tim, for me, a non native of the English language, bleeding racket gives the exact idea of tintamarre.

Ken Broadhurst said...

The CNRTL dictionary gives these synonyms:

tapage, tohu-bohu, chahut, bruit, tumulte, raffut, boucan, vacarme, charivari, cacophonie, désordre, ramdam, esclandre, fracas, éclat, scandale, pétard, hourvari, confusion, brouhaha, barouf, tam-tam, sérénade, sabbat, remue-ménage, potin, foin, bousin, cri

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