The Etymology of Claret
Claret is a small monument to the long English love affair with Bordeaux. The word comes from Old French vin claret, meaning clear or pale wine, where claret is a diminutive of clair (Latin clarus, clear, bright). In the 12th to 15th centuries, England controlled the duchy of Aquitaine, and Bordeaux wine flowed across the Channel in vast quantities — clairette, the lightly pressed pale-red wine of the Gironde, was the most-traded export. To medieval English drinkers, claret meant a light, almost pinkish wine, much closer to a rosé than to today’s Bordeaux. As wine-making improved over the centuries, the wines darkened — longer maceration, fuller extraction — but the English kept calling them claret out of habit and trade tradition. By the 18th century claret was specifically a deep, full-bodied red Bordeaux. The colour name claret (a deep purplish-red, used for fabrics and uniforms) follows from the wine, completing the inversion: a word that began meaning clear or pale now names a deep dark colour.