The name comes from the fifth bottle that was opened in two hours as social order broke down at the marketing company meeting called to establish the moniker.

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“Cru” can mean a variety of things in French, with “raw” being perhaps the most common. In the milk business it means unpasteurized. With respect to wine, it doesn’t actually mean the vineyard as such but what is grown there. I might translate it roughly as “growth” and it often denotes a wine’s perceived quality. A Grand Cru or a Premier Cru wine is a high quality product, at least in theory. It certainly will be expensive! In the most famous wine regions, Bordeaux and Burgundy, there are long established and highly remunerative pecking orders using the terms “Grand Cru” and “Premier Cru.” (The exact significance of the terms differs slightly between the two.). The result of this is the the word Cru might be considered to connote quality and, less positively, expense. I would take the message in the name to be, “This is a high quality place and it will cost you both arms and a leg ... and your firstborn.”

But IC42’s explanation may be uncomfortably close to reality.

An aside: I’m writing this from a village in the south of France. We won’t be having Grand Cru wine with our dinner, just a local bottle of Corbiéres I bought for 3.00 euros, about $4.50 CAN. I expect to enjoy it very much either despite or perhaps because of the price.
 
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i definitely interpreted at first as "raw" and was (and still am) confused at this name being chosen to brand the building.
 
Yegger said:
i definitely interpreted at first as "raw" and was (and still am) confused at this name being chosen to brand the building.
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As per @67Cup's post, it's a word that's used to connote a special quality when it's applied to a product. Cru assures you this is a French Oak barrel-fermented condo.

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@67Cup: are we talking Gordes? Rousillion? Les Baux? Èze? St-Paul-de-Vence? Don't leave my imagination hanging here!
 
If it's derived from the French word, I find it okay, but if it's another precious abbreviation of an English word ("crew", "blue", etc.), it's insufferable.
 
@interchange42 We are in Rivel, on the western edge of the Aude, in the Pays Cathare, south and east of Mirepoix. The village is tucked into a fold in the foothills of the Pyrenees and is only a short drive to the beginning of the mountains themselves. A lovely area.

To make this more about construction, the village was destroyed in approximately 1210 during the crusade against the Cathars. It was then rebuilt on a slightly different site. The only building spared was the original village church. It is a Romanesque structure with an odd facade added much later that extends well above the nave and contains an arch which supports the church bell.

I wonder if any structures in Toronto will last ca. 850 years.
 
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Oh, sorry guys, missed the last few posts, because I was down in Cambridge rowing "cru"...

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interchange42 said:
In other instances of Cru popping up in Toronto, there was a restaurant at Bloor and Royal York for several years with that name. It was replaced several years ago itself, and now there's another one with that name at 100 Yonge Street:

torontolife.com

What's on the menu at CRU, the Financial District's new spot for massive ribeyes and plant-based pastas

Also: caviar "doughnuts"
torontolife.com torontolife.com

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that's funny you bring that up, because the entertainment district just had this restaurant open shop less than a month ago, also with CRU http://www.grandcrudeli.com/
 
That block is going to be really dense, with 3 towers over 60 stories and 1 Yorkville at 58 stories
 
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