Always choose a wine by its label

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I find wine labels pretty exciting and this Wine Blogging Wednesday #16 even more so.
I once worked in a marketing type job and was involved in some brand development. The idea was to imagine what the bottle’s label would have been like, say, a couple of hundred years previously. With that in mind we could develop a label that communicated heritage, quality and all that guff.
Winemakers are split between heritage look labels and funky designs.
There are plenty of Aussie ones out there with rustic knock-about, if not amusing, names that are also lucky enough to charge a premium for their wines. Think Ten Minutes by tractor, for one.
A local restaurateur Ronnie Di Stasio of the eponymously named restaurant had his mother write his wine label in her scrawl. It won at the local art directors’ club awards.
The problem is I already know thee two striking labels so they are disqualified from this tasting.
wine blogging wednesday wbw wbw 16 wine

I stopped first at The Prince Winestore in South Melbourne and a shocking vivid pink label caught my eye. But buying anything from this wineshop is a cheat such is the good taste of its buyers.
Over at the local supermarket I also had problems. I pretty much recognised all the brands so had some preconceptions of what the drink inside the bottle would be like.
It was for that reason that I decided to exit my comfort zone and enter Cellarbrations. I’m breaking one of my rules here by being a snob. But this is a fairly tacky looking chain of stores that uses brash imagery in its marketing.
And I hit jackpot with two AUD14 (that’s about US10 or £5.80) bottles of Shiraz. I couldn’t decide which looked worse, The Little Penguin 2004 from Nuriootpa or the Howling Wolves 2003 from Margaret River.
Penguins are something close to my heart. They live in the breakwater at our local marina and funny little creatures. A couple of hours away at Philip Island they go on a march each night. And apparently they topple over backwards when watching planes fly overhead (although this could be an urban myth).
When I first told Jackie I’d seen some dead penguins on the beach her vivid imagination conjured up pictures of birds the size of a teenage boy –King Penguin size – lying on the beach. In fact these are tiny, about half the size of a bottle of wine.
I am approaching the Little Penguin fondly, amused by the irony of the smallest of penguins representing the biggest of the red grapes. Undoubtedly there is some irony in there somewhere. But the marketers here have underplayed their hand getting a bit serious about the penguin connection.
“Little Penguins are very sociable and often gather to forage for delicacies. We invite you to do the same with the great wines from The Little Penguin.” Please!
If indeed there were any great wines from this little penguin I’m certainly beyond foraging. Jackie was more blunt than me about this wine. That’s all you need to know from her, as today I’m feeling legally shy.
My own verdict is that this is a wine to lay down, and avoid as the old joke goes. I’d say don’t even pick it up.
I’ve tried it straight from the bottle, decanted it and even given it a few seconds in the microwave. It is a very harsh wine and not one to keep in the hope of improvement.
Put it this way the Aldi (as in the downmarket supermarket has a better $5.99 cleanskin Shiraz)
By the time I offered the Wolves to Jackie, she was howling. “No, please Noooo.”
As in all good horror stories she was ignored and the claret flowed.
Her fate wasn’t as bad as she’d anticipated. But then she changed her mind after one glass.
Suggestions for what to do with two barely touched bottles of Shiraz are welcome.
maybe I should make that horror movie afterall. At least I’ve plenty of claret to spill.

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