Peter May's Unusual Wine Labels 5

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Unusual Labels
page 5

Diversity in Wine


T here seems to be no end to unusual or inventive labels, weird or funny names and other interesting labels. Thank goodness! Enjoy the following....

Utter Bastard France
A new red Syrah wine joins its stable mate, Fat Bastard, seen on a previous page. Its a good fruity wine, but perhaps not best served when the vicar comes to call.... .
Chiltern Valley France
Chiltern Valley is an innovative vineyard with a modern winery in historic buildings nestling on an Oxfordshire hill. One year they discovered their grapes were unexpectedly affected by noble rot. The owner went to France to learn how to take advantage of these grapes, and with the go-ahead of the English wine authority made a botrytised dessert wine that is a luscious perfumed delight. But look at the label. Nowhere does it mention wine. Thats because the wine authority changed their mind after it was made and said it couln't legally be called wine. This is what the text on the bottom border says

But if it's not wine, then we don't have to pay the crippling wine taxes? Not so, the tax authority says its wine and tax it. Crazy or what? .
Dog's Bollocks France
The Dogs Bollocks is cockney slang for something special or really good, and is the house label of Eastenders, a booze hypermarket in Calais. Calais is some 25 miles over the channel from England, connected by frequent ferries and the channel tunnel. Tax on wine in France barely exists, while tax on wine in England can double the cost of a cheap wine. Cockney Dave West opened Eastenders warehouse to cater for the hundreds of Brits who cross the channel to load their vehicles with cheap booze. (Bollocks is British slang for testicles and the word used on its own means 'rubbish'.) .
The Official Greenwich Millennium Wine Bordeaux
This ordinary claret (red Bordeaux) carries an impressive title.It is bottled for, and available at the Greenwich Observatory in London. Longtitude is measured from Greenwich, hence GMT - Greenwich Mean Time, often known now as UTC - Universal Time Co-ordinate, or Zulu time.

Oh the vintage? Well the race is on for which wine will be the first to bear a vintage 2000, but this respectable claret is from the 1997 vintage.

Vinification Controlee France
An impressive label, but look closer. What does Vinification Controlee mean? It has no legal significance. And where does the wine come from? All we can see is that it is from France.
This label has all the signs of a really cheap nasty bulk shipped wine pretending to be something classy.
Thanks to Simon Jacobs in Canada for this label
Cochon Mignon
(Sweet Pigs)
France
These sweet pigs grace a locally bottled wine on sale in Quebec, Canada. The back label reads
Red Wine.
Be a member of the order of Cute Pigs.
You only need have a fine palate (thirsty), a greedy desire
and of course, this gallant wine......
Thanks to Simon Jacobs for the label.

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25September 1999
peter@winelabels.org