Cru

"Cru" - an odd, tiny word. In the wine world, we usually translate it as "growth", referring to a place where vines have grown particularly well for a particularly long time. Thus crus are vineyards capable of producing wines excellent and distinctive enough to merit having particular names attached to them.

And yet, my French-English dictionary lists a melange of other meanings for "cru": raw, unpasteurized, harsh, blunt, uncompromising. Context is everything in figuring out what words mean, of course - few would find harshness or bluntness in a Burgundy from Chambertin or a Barolo from Cannubi. But in the winegrowing notion of cru there is something uncomprising and even raw (in the sense of pure and untransformed - think steak tartare or carne cruda alla piemontese). It's the desire to maintain vineyards and wines of distinct personalities - sometimes subtly distinct personalities - even when it would be easier and maybe more economically advantageous to do otherwise.

Some words show their muscle by being adopted in other languages - schadenfreude, aficionado, OK.... The Italians at least have adopted cru as their own. I don't know whether to marvel more at the lack of such a word in most languages or at the realization that such a word is necessary (and readily borrowable from French). I'm inclined towards the latter.