Souzão is not a grape most American wine drinkers have had much reason to learn to pronounce. That may be changing.
As I explored in Nobody Does It Better, the Texas Hill Country is quietly producing some of the world’s highest-rated examples of this little-known Portuguese variety. With Souzão making such an impressive showing in Texas, there is a practical question: How do you actually say it?
At the 2026 TEXSOM conference, Shelly Wilfong, host of This Is Texas Wine, had a stroke of genius: she asked Eugenio Jardim to pronounce Souzão for the camera. I wish I had thought of it. Even better, Shelly graciously shared the video with me. Eugenio was also gracious enough to let me share it here.
There could hardly be a better person to ask. Brazilian-born Eugenio Jardim has served as the Wines of Portugal USA Ambassador since 2015. He was wine director at San Francisco’s celebrated Jardinière from 2001 to 2013, was named Sunset magazine’s 2010 Sommelier of the Year, and has served as Director of Wine Studies at the San Francisco Cooking School and as an adjunct professor at the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone.
So rather than trying to spell the pronunciation out phonetically, I’ll let Eugenio do it.
