I remember poodle skirts, bouffant hair, cotton candy, putrid pink, heavy perfume, and it all came under the word “boutique.”
That word – boutique – is now fingernails screeching down a blackboard, so when you call your winery a “boutique” winery…
Artisan, it’s so sophisticated… It lets the listener know that you take yourself craft seriously, there’s a great deal of worldly experience, knowledge of the process, with a cultured mind creating the end result.
Please no more “boutiques wineries,” please, please, please.
When a winery’s called “artisan,” that makes it crystal clear that there’s an artist on board; someone who’s devoted to his or her craft, and only the best will do. He or she is not focused on pleasing the entire universe with flavors, aromas and/or oddities that are over the top. Artisan wineries have devoted, cult followers. Quality over quantity reigns. When you read this, does ’boutique’ make any sense at all in this equation?
Maybe I just have PTSD?
Maybe it’s because I grew up in a time when my mother bathed herself in Faberge before going out with my dad. It was a time when beehive hairdos and poodle skirts were in… (We even had a poodle named “Pepe.”) Patent leather pocketbooks and mink stoles… All images of a time when someone went to a boutique salon to buy all those kitschy things.
You can do your own thing. It’s America, after all… Just know that you won’t find that adjective in anything I write, except for this story. Unless, of course… someone really does have one…
In that case, I’d have to tell the truth. Better yet, I just won’t write about a “boutique,” including yours as so described, even if you use and love the word.
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