''Plonk'' is a term used primarily in
Commonwealth English
The use of the English language in current and former Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, countries of Commonwealth of Nations, the Commonwealth was largely inherited from British Empire, British colonisation, with some exceptions. Eng ...
for generally cheap, low-quality
wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...
.
[winepros.com.au. ] Some believe it to come from Australian slang, in reference to ''blanc'' (the
French word for "white"), before it became naturalised in Britain. Despite the reference to the colour white, the term is not limited to white wine, and can as easily indicate a red wine or
rosé
A rosé () is a type of wine that incorporates some of the wine color, color from the grape skins, but not enough to qualify it as a red wine. It may be the oldest known type of wine, as it is the most straightforward to make with the Macerati ...
.
In this context, the phrase has even spawned the title of a novel which evokes the perceived tackiness of the 1980s.
In Australia, plonk packaged and sold in a
cask
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids ...
or simply in a bag is commonly called "
goon".
In New Zealand, such wine sold in a cask is often referred to as "Château Cardboard".
The term has also been adopted in other
Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...
countries, particularly in
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
.
Other usages
The term is not always used in a wholly derogatory manner. It can indicate a degree of strange affection for the wine in question. ''
Telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
'' journalist Max Davidson has equated plonk with "youth, ... excess, ... self-indulgence in times of penury. Forget grown-up wine. With plonk, the sweetest bouquet of all is the taste of a few pence saved."
Today, the term can often be used to indicate that a particular social gathering is not a fancy affair. For example, if a party guest is worried about the social level of the occasion, a host might assuage his or her concerns with the phrase: "Oh, just bring a bottle of plonk." Indeed, probably the most famous literary use of "plonk" comes in
Willy Russell's play ''
Educating Rita''.
Working-class
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
Rita decides she cannot attend a party to which academic Frank has invited her, since she is ashamed of the wine she has bought and feels out-of-place. When Rita reports her anxieties to Frank the following week, he castigates Rita for being too self-conscious, reassuring her: "It wouldn't have mattered if you'd walked in carrying a bottle of Spanish plonk."
Another well-known usage of the word was that of Horace Rumpole, the title character of
John Mortimer's television series "
Rumpole of the Bailey
''Rumpole of the Bailey'' is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer. It starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, a middle-aged London barrister who defended a broad variety of clients, ...
" (1975–1992). Rumpole would frequently suggest to a fellow barrister, and sometimes even a client, that they repair to Pomeroy's Wine Bar, to down a few glasses of plonk.
Health concerns
The
Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012
The Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012 is an Act of the Scottish Parliament, which introduces a Statutory law, statutory minimum price for alcohol, initially 50p per Unit of alcohol, unit, as an element in the programme to counter alco ...
is an
Act of the Scottish Parliament
An act of the Scottish Parliament () is primary legislation made by the Scottish Parliament. The power to create acts was conferred to the Parliament by section 28 of the Scotland Act 1998 following the successful 1997 Scottish devolution ref ...
, which introduces a
statutory
A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wil ...
minimum price for alcohol, initially 50p per
unit
Unit may refer to:
General measurement
* Unit of measurement, a definite magnitude of a physical quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law
**International System of Units (SI), modern form of the metric system
**English units, histo ...
, as an element in the programme to counter
alcohol problems.
Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) for alcohol is a policy measure being considered for adoption in several countries, including Ireland, Switzerland, Wales, and Poland, pending evidence of its effectiveness. In Scotland, despite strong public and parliamentary support, the implementation of MUP has faced legal challenges from the spirits industry. The passage suggests that instead of opposing such health-oriented policies, the alcohol industry could adopt less harmful business models. It cites France as an example, where the wine industry successfully transitioned from selling inexpensive "plonk" to
quality wines produced in specified regions, resulting in increased profits and a reduction in deaths from
alcoholic liver disease
Alcoholic liver disease (ALD), also called alcohol-related liver disease (ARLD), is a term that encompasses the liver manifestations of alcohol overconsumption, including fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and chronic hepatitis with liver fibrosi ...
.
See also
*
Box wine
*
Flavored fortified wine
*
Jabol
*
Jug wine
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Plonk (Wine)
Wine terminology
English words
https://sjmc.gov.au/wine-in-war-the-origins-of-plonk/