Viniculture spans over 140 years of history...

[White Hat]

Dear forumers,

does the following sentence sound natural to you?

"The winery's viniculture spans over 140 years of history and has nurtured true maestros of wine-growing and wine-making."

Thank you.

 

[5jj]

Only a personal thought, as I know little about how people write about viniculture.

Your sentence doesn't sound quite right to me, but I am not really sure why. Perhaps it's because I think that 'viniculture' is too general a term to be applied to what one winery has done. So, I'd be happy to see 'Viniculture has a long and proud history in France' or 'He studied viniculture in several countries before deciding to plant his fist vineyard in Finland', but not 'the winery's viniculture...'. We can't even really say 'the winery's involvement with viniculture ...' because wineries are hardly likely to be involved in any other kind of ...culture., though we could use the name of the family that has owned the vineyard and say "The Laterrine family's involvement with viniculture spans ...'.

 

[White Hat]

5jj,

thank you for your input. Basically, I just wanted to know whether the "spans over 140 years of history" part sounds OK.
Would this sentence sound better if we changed it to

"The winery spans over 140 years of history and has nurtured true maestros of wine-growing and wine-making."

?

 

[5jj]

I hope somebody else chips in here, because I have to say that I am not sure. I'd accept 'The history of the winery spans over 140 years', but I am not too happy about your sentence. I would not say it's wrong, though. That's all I can really say, though I'll be popping back to see what others think.

Sorry I couldn't be more useful.

 

[Tdol]

It's not a winner of a sentence to me either. How about something like In its 140-year history, the winery has produced many masters of/in cultivation and wine making?

 

[White Hat]

I've mentioned your variants to the client. It turns out they want a sentence infused with some pathos, some elevatedness.

Here is what I've concocted:

With its proud history of over 140 years of dedicated commitment to quality wine-growing and wine-making, the winery has produced many great maestros of the craft.

 

[5jj]

With its proud history of over 140 years of dedicated commitment to quality wine-growing and wine-making, the winery has produced many great maestros of the craft.

That sounds much better. I would prefer 'masters' - 'maestros' is too associated with music for it to work here for me, but everything else is fine.

 

[BobK]

I've mentioned your variants to the client. It turns out they want a sentence infused with some pathos, some elevatedness.

Here is what I've concocted:

With its proud history of over 140 years of dedicated commitment to quality wine-growing and wine-making, the winery has produced many great maestros of the craft.

That's fine. You could use the leisure marketing cliché 'The winery has seen/witnessed over 140 yrs...', but I always find that trope a bit lip-curling! And I agree with 5jj about 'maestros' (which sounds to me a bit musical); but you've got to be careful with 'masters' because there's a qualification - some people are Masters of Wine, and would resent its being implied about people not so qualified; but most of your masters are probably Masters anyway. ;-)

b