Label Libel

One of the most frustrating things about writing on wine is that despite your best efforts, most wine sold depends on a single paramount factor – the label. Yes, the galling and inescapable truth is that regardless of how many aptly-chosen adjectives and images I think I might apply to a particular fermented alcohol, I won’t sell a single extra drop if its maker insists on branding it with a label about as appealing and evocative as a winter vacation at the Falkland Islands.

Look at the label fads and immediately see what I mean. Apart from the ubiquitous list of awards, whose impact declines in direct proportion to the frequency with which they are handed around, art is most frequently used to contribute to the cultural totality of the wine experience.

One assumes that much of the label art is commissioned to connote what vibrant depths of colour, flavour and texture are to be experienced once the cork has been extracted. To this end, paintings, both reproduced and original are frequently employed, ever since Mouton-Rothschild came up with the idea in 1927. In Australia Leeuwin Estate was the first to commission a new work for each vintage. Then, if I remember correctly, we had the Hardys Collection Series, on whose back label the company takes pains to verbalise the natural affinity of wine with art as if the stuff is only fit to drink in galleries or museums.

Initially Hardys gave equal credit to the different but complementary creative forces by presenting the signatures of both “artist peintre” the artist responsible for the work of art and the “artist du vin” he whose deft palate and artistic flair made the wine. It’s all too much, but if you want the full encapsulated aesthetic experience, then wine is obviously the thing for you.

Other art has most certainly been chosen with the clear attention of diverting any attention away from the taste of the beverage itself. Indeed such is the depth of creative talent even to be found on Australian wine labels, that the modern wine writer could indeed be forgiven for branching out into this secondary sphere of critical appreciation.

Personally speaking, it is difficult not to have one’s desires for contemporary landscapes sated by Leeuwin Estate’s excellent art series or the modestly priced Cockatoo Ridge; one’s taste in avarian art by the Houghton Bird Series; Australian masters by the Landragin series; floral watercolours by the Houghton Wildflower Ridge series, or modern classics by the Hardy’s Collection range itself.

For a dose of Australian flora I can additionally turn to the flower labels of Mildara, or the tall, ranging eucalypts of Howard Park or Amberly Estate. When in contemplative feel, I fossick around for the studied seascapes of the Yalumba Nautilus or the moody greys of Cloudy Bay. For something more vibrant, the oily textures of the Hill-Smith Estate or the breezy colours of a Mount Hurtle label by Russell Morrison.

Perhaps one day discussion of the artistic merits of the wine label will become a valid part of what is known as ‘winespeak’. Connoisseurs of wine could delight in a “sly, racy little watercolour, suitable for short-term enjoyment but lacking in potential to appreciate”. A label designed simply in black and white could possibly be said to have a “presumptuous, but monotonous palate, without much potential to soften out in the future”.

Label aside, the bottle shape and form is becoming more crucial by the minute. Most of our so-called ‘de luxe’ sparkling wines are now to be poured from anything but a standard champagne bottle. Many are now sportingly bottled in hollow skittles, perhaps to encourage a modern interpretation of how best to handle the disposal of ten empty green bottles. Line them up at the end of the corridor as they do in the bowling alley, reduce them to fragments with the carpet-bowl and then recycle.

Then there is the name. The search for the key to this particular Pandora’s box continues. There must be a name that is at once evocative and arresting, descriptive yet not threatening. Sure there are, but most of them are French. When used on Australian wine they could hardly be more misleading. A well-known Barossa winemaker once made a soft red wine that his friends were expecting him to call a burgundy. “No, I’ll call it Claret,” he declared. “Clarets sell better.”

The Europeans have stopped us from abusing Beaujolais, which is only right and proper, but despite the most recent bit of deal-signing with the EEC, no timetabled moves to ban our use of the terms ‘Champagne’, ‘Burgundy’ and ‘Chablis’ have brightened our horizons. The Australian wine industry can only consider it anything but a cottage industry in the global sense when it leaves the names of other peoples’ wines right alone.

By doing the right thing and labelling our wines by their true regions, vineyards and varieties, some additional good can result. There is so much good, sound and well-priced Australian chardonnay sold at present in the United Kingdom that the word “chardonnay” there has almost come to be exclusively identified with Australian wine. What a bonus!

Seaview, which like a significant portion of the wine industry is part of the Penfolds group, has recently released a couple of new wines aimed squarely at the bewildered masses remaining daunted by wine’s complex nomenclature. There’s a red and a white, named Pinotfresco and Alfresco respectively, both of which have caught the fashion bug and find themselves bottled in champagne skittles.

Although Pinotfresco is a lot to get your tongue around, both wines are acceptable enough in the $8 bracket, but don’t offer as much flavour or value as a multitude of others priced similarly or cheaper. Still, full marks to Seaview for not copying the French, the Italians or the Spanish…

Straight to the bottom of the class, then, to McWilliams, for releasing in their Rosedale Ridge range a cheap and sweetish wine called ‘Graves’. They should have known better than to bastardise the name of a district in Bordeaux, France, known for its elegant and bone-dry wines. For every step forward, you slide two or three back. Who in Australia understands Graves anyway?

And in 1982 who understood ‘White Bordeaux’? Mark Cashmore then introduced this rather provocative name for a Richmond Grove dry white. The ploy worked and a hugely successful brand was created, but its label was soon forced to become the rather incongruous ‘Upper Hunter White Bordeaux’.

The wine’s ongoing popularity simply confirms every doubt I raised earlier. With every bottle Cashmore sells, we wine scribes are just going to have to work harder to justify our scribblings. Please login to post comment