Wine Terminology across Cultures: The Case of the Pseudo-English Internationalism Super Tuscan

Preceded by a description of the so-called Super Tuscan wines and a definition of the term Super Tuscan, mostly drawn from the lexicographic analysis carried out by the author (Furiassi: 2019) and incorporating the reconstruction of the etymology of this false oenological Anglicism, the aim of this article is to show, through corpus data, that Super Tuscan has now managed to circulate in languages other than English and Italian, particularly French, Spanish and German, thus highlighting differences and similarities among them. Quantitative and qualitative facts about Super Tuscan in the various languages taken into account are gathered through the analysis of the following corpora: CORIS and Italian Web 2016 for Italian, BNC, COCA and English Web 2013 for English, Frantext and French Web 2012 for French, CdE, CREA and Spanish Web 2018 for Spanish, and DeReKo and German Web 2013 for German. Finally, by emphasizing the intercultural dimension of specialized lexis, this article considers the possibility that the global success of Super Tuscan wines might have turned Super Tuscan from a specialized term employed by wine enthusiasts or professionals into a word currently known and used by non-connoisseurs, not only in Italy, its birthplace, but in other languages as well, including English, thus allowing this false Anglicism to propagate at an international level.