Words of Meaning

Like a walking-cane that helps the convalescent return to exercise, nervous of where to tread or transfer weight, so the back label of a wine bottle is a crutch for those nervous where to transfer their hard currency.

They don’t make wine taste better, they don’t decorate or sparkle. Yet they are an integral part of the wine selling process, and an object of abject fear by those winemakers given the task of writing them.

Putting a back label on your wine is an action born more from fear than an expression of marketing confidence. It’s more a case of “How many won’t we sell without one?” than “How many bottles will this information actually move?”. Brilliant Victorian winemaker, David Traegar, is on record as saying “I can make a wine in six weeks, but it takes me two months to write a back label.”

It depends on your inspiration and where it comes from. Information comes from master eccentric winemaker Geoff Merrill that the resident gander in stud at his Mount Hurtle winery, Bruce the Goose, has sadly passed on, presumably to some form of goose Purgatory. His stamina was such last spring, when he ceased to hide his procreative designs on Daffy, the winery’s gracious resident wood duck, that Merrill thought Bruce was going for a label of his own.

All the Mount Hurtle labels have Russell Morrisson etchings and woodcuts of the local birds, but to have designed one around Bruce would of course have been out of the question. To quote, “If Russ did one of him then, it would have been outright hard core avifaunal porn.”

Most Australian wines have back labels and, if a wine has a back label it should be interesting enough, in theory at least, to have something to say. But don’t pick a bottle just because it comes with an instruction manual, however fanciful the description may be. Most back labels say that the wine shows flavoursome ripe fruit flavour perfectly balanced by new oak, is drinking well right now but will undoubtedly cellar well for twenty years.

Despite that, some celebrated examples have earned a special place in my Wine Hall of Fame.

The back label of a sparkling wine called “Marquise de Pompadour, Grand Mousseux, Qualite Superieure” allegedly had the following to say: “Our vineyards in Maharashtra draws life from lime-rich soil to bear fruit. The tropical sun, at its gentlest in winter, caresses the infant grapes. Time cajoles them into maturity. And the grower’s sweat lights up the emerald bulbs, signalling harvest time”.

That’s Maharashtra, India, of all places, described in local propaganda as the “California of India”. I am also informed that “In 1983 a group of connoisseurs sat around their familiar tables in Europe to taste this champagne…from the land of maharajahs, snake charmers and the marble wonder. “Ce vin est bon!” “This wine is nice”…JCO was the verdict that their sensitive palates gave”.

This detail does nothing more than to strengthen my resolve to avoid both Indian champagne and copy-writers like the black death, to which it appears both should be sentenced.

But history shows how useful back labels can be. A certain Ian Lappins was driving through the Adelaide suburb of Morphetville when his headlights picked up a group of teenagers acting suspiciously.

When he slowed down he saw them toss a briefcase into a rubbish bin before disappearing. Ian decided to retrieve the briefcase, and if possible return it to its owner, who judging by the documents, keys and a few personal items inside, belonged to one Ian McKenzie.

On mentioning the incident to his brother-in-law, Brian Marx, Brian recalled seeing the name Ian McKenzie as the winemaker on the back label of a bottle of Seppelt Drumborg Traminer he had polished off the previous night at the Adelaide Hotel.

He called the guest speaker for the night, who just happened to be Seppelt’s Brian Miller, who confirmed that Ian McKenzie was actually in town, judging wine at the Adelaide Wine Show. A quick phone call revealed that McKenzie’s briefcase had in fact been stolen less than twelve hours before, from his car.

A grateful McKenzie responded with a selection of Seppelt wines for the finder and has reportedly revised his attitude towards the practice of fixing back labels to wine bottles…

There’s no doubt that when precise and concise, back labels are considerably useful and may prevent you buying the very wine you don’t want to drink. Some, like those of James Halliday’s Coldstream Hills, bear an uncanny resemblance to his column in the Weekend Australian. Information like where the grapes were grown, where the wine was made, what oak the winemaker used, what the vintage conditions were, specific prominent flavours and whether it’s a wine that really needs cellaring, is extremely useful.

Bland wine reviews with adjectives bordering on the self-congratulatory reduce the overall impact of the presentation to that of a cheap car ad. And if health warnings are ever mandatorily imposed on Australian wine, then expect to see a recommended dosage as well. “This elegant cool-climate chardonnay fermented and then matured in French oak casks for six months, which has undergone a partial malolactic fermentation and will continue to develop in the bottle for at least five years, has the capacity kill you”. Insane, but that’s what we have to look forward to.

Interestingly enough, I am yet to read an undecorous back label. How about this one from E. and J. Gallo, the American firm which is by far the world’s largest wine company. It’s from the label of ‘Olympus Gold’, the official wine of the XXIIIrd Olympiad at Los Angeles, and it reads: ‘A medium-dry, medium-sweet, medium sparkling golden wine that goes with meat, fish, fowl, eggs, vegetables, fruits and grains. Enjoy it at any time, day or night’.

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