Sunday 6 March 7-by-many MOLESTER puzzle

[ridethetalk]

MOSELLE – like riesling, claret, shiraz, merlot etc...

[yelnats]

I tried 'mosel" but with your post I remember that's the German spelling.

[blackrockrose]

I second John's moselle suggestion.

[ridethetalk]

It's been a long time since the days of Ben Ean but I still remember them... 

[Hobbit]

MOSELLE – like riesling, claret, shiraz, merlot etc...

John I wonder if MOSELLE has a capital letter as it's a river & that's why it's not accepted.  Sorry just a thought.

[ridethetalk]

Riesling is in the same boat and yet was accepted recently...

This could be opening up a whole can of worms - or rather a whole case of plonk - since I haven't checked the classification of other popular wine varieties. (Though I do know pinot is common, from the anagram set point, piton, pinto, pinot.)

However, the word riesling is used often enough to warrant common status, so the only  issue is capitalisation. Almost all dictionaries agree with your spell checker, Jacki, and give a capital R, without the option. Why this should be is unclear, as it doesn't seem to derive from a place name. If the word was almost always written with a capital R, it might be justified to have it as a rare word, since many players might not realise it can be written without the capital letter. But it looks to me as if about 25% to 30% of the time it's written with a lower-case r, so I don't think many players would be surprised to see that it's allowed in Chi.

The word will be treated as common from now on. Cheers!

[auntiemo]

I bought a "wine guide" in the early 70's which identified wines by their labels...for those too blind to read, perhaps. Ben Ean was described as the white wine consumed by those who knew nothing about wine, but knew what they liked.....and that was me! It was my go-to drink!

[rogue_mother]

I'm unfamiliar with Ben Ean; it must be local to Australia. In the late 60s and early 70s, chablis was our white wine of choice, any label.

As for Moselle (or moselle, as RTT would have it, but Google disagrees), I'm not sure most people think of it as a wine varietal. In my own mind, it's more of a wine-growing region that produces a range of different varietals, and hence, is always capitalized. As such, I shouldn't think it would be included in the Chi lexicon.

[Alan W]

Most dictionaries show this word with a capital M only, but the OED says, " Also with lower-case initial", and gives examples, including this one from Vogue in 1968:

A young moselle is a perfect aperitif, especially if it has that rare characteristic spritzig.

I'll add moselle as a rare word.

[ridethetalk]

Thanks Alan...