Last week, a judge in New Zealand made a 9 year-old girl a ward of the Court in order to change her name from “Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii“. Justice Robert Murfitt also expressed his disapproval for equally outrageous names registered in New Zealand, such as Number 16 Bus Shelter, Violence and — my favourite — Midnight Chardonnay. But if the state is going to police the good taste of our children’s monikers, will they also protect something equally vulnerable? Can the courts stop winemakers from giving their wines such god-awful and stupid names?
Think what it does to the self-esteem of a wine to be called Fat Bastard Chardonnay ($14.95, LCBO #563130). Any why? To attract attention. To make the wine’s name memorable. To make money. How disgusting. I can assure you, such a wine is bound to end up in Therapy, which is incidentally the name of a BC winery which is responsible for “the Freudian Sip” (a white blend for $18.99) and “the Pink Freud” (a rosé for $18.99).
The rise of the silly name is a result of wine’s growing popularity. It’s now a marketable commodity and not just a French import for the idle rich. This is both great for wine (there is much more of it around and its quality has skyrocketed), but sad too, since success in the market is often determined by extraneous factors like ad campaigns and gimmicky brands. Vancouver Magazine recently profiled the “brand wizard” Bernie Hadley-Beauregard and his revitalization of several wineries in the Okanagan. Scherzinger Vineyards was having trouble with sales, but after renaming themselves “Dirty Laundry Vineyards”, their wine flies off the shelves. Will their wine improve? Perhaps if the profits flow back to the business.
But is any success worth these puns?
- Cat’s Pee on a Gooseberry Bush ($13.95, LCBO #606384) – an entry level white wine named after a vivid description the acidic and vegetal aroma of Sauvignon Blanc.
- The Goats du Roam wines from South Africa, which are designed to resemble the fabled Côtes du Rhône wines of France. Both are earthy, smoky and complex, but the Goats are a fraction of the price. Try the delectable Goats du Roam in Villages (
$15.75[Ed. note: No longer available], Vintages #566851) - The wines of Cono Sur from Chile, the “southern cone”. I’ve reviewed their tasty and dirt cheap Pinot, but their bilingual puns must be stopped.
There are even worse names out there: the Big Yellow Cab, the Original Zin, Chat-en-Oeuf and “Hearty Wines for Men”. I don’t know what Judge Murfitt would say, but if precious, precious wine can survive this sort of stigma, surely Talula can too.
Matthew Sullivan is a lawyer with the Department of Justice in Toronto. He writes a weekly blog entry here on lawandstyle.ca. The Short Cellar column appears in the print edition of Precedent. Matthew can be reached at matthew@lawandstyle.beta-site.ca