Photo of Freakshow red wine label by Mark Videan.
By Gordon Berg
I like wine. Reds mostly. But I must confess. I’m not a wine connoisseur. Sure, I like red wine ⸺ my cabs, my merlots and my malbecs. But if I’m being truthful, I can’t tell one from the other. I’ve tried. My palate is untrainable. It’s like trying to teach an Irish Setter puppy with a short attention span.
A congenial wine attendant in a tasting room can educate me about all the subtle notes of its coffee, pecan and anise flavors. Astutely I swirl the wine in the glass, watching how uniformly it coats the inside. I put my nose deep in the glass and breathe in, suggesting to others that I’ve trained my olfactory nerves to retrieve whatever it is they should be looking for. Sometimes it feels like I really am tasting and smelling what that patient wine pourer has enthusiastically asked me to sense. But after that first taste, my inner Irish Setter takes over. I’m hopelessly distracted by conversation. Stunning views of the bay command my attention. The next thing I know the glass is empty and the wine attendant is asking me, “So, how did you like our 2018 grenache?”
“It’s alright,” I reply, trying my best to sound discerning.
Not fully comprehending what she said, I look down at the list of wines to sample. It looks strikingly similar to a scorecard for a round of golf. Right down to the stubby #2 pencil. A reminder of yet another activity I lack the skills to enjoy.
So, when my wife turns me loose in Meijer to pick out our wine for the week, my instincts rely on the only truly discerning method I have of making my selection … the wine label.
Exotic labels
To illustrate what I mean, walk with me down one of those long aisles of red wines in the grocery store. You’re overwhelmed. It’s all a blur of stately colors and staid artwork featuring a vineyard, or the vintner’s name, or a cute dog, or a wood duck maybe. How do you choose? I dunno. “Maybe I’ll just get something that’s on sale,” you mutter to yourself in defeat.
All these labels create a sea of blandness, row upon row. It’s like your great-grandfather’s collection of records from the forties and fifties. Bing Crosby. Frank Sinatra. Peggy Lee. Remember? The covers all had the same predictable look. A suave artist, a sport coat casually draped over one shoulder, standing against a monochromatic background. A brief description informs the potential listener that the music inside is “swingin’.”
Ooof.
Back in that wine aisle, you’re about to give up until your eyes land on one of the fresh, new, rebel labels. They remind me of the golden age of album covers from the sixties and seventies when graphic design ruled. They grab your eyeballs and won’t let go. Like The Beatles’ iconic “Sgt. Pepper’s” cover with its splashy psychedelic colors surrounded by a hip crowd of culturally historic figures. Or any Yes or Moody Blues album with ethereal artwork inviting you to fall into its imagery. Or Led Zeppelin’s first album featuring the Hindenburg airship exploding in flames.
Today, any teenager shuffling through their grandparents’ album collection would know, just by looking at the cover, that something unexpectedly amazing is going to greet their ears for the first time when they give it a spin on that old Garrard turntable.
Alluring words
Similarly, even the names of these new wines suggest that the winemakers are going for something edgier, riskier, fun or even dangerous. It’s like the mind-bending leap from The Lawrence Welk Orchestra to the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
Let me stumble on one of these Janis Joplinesque wine labels, and I can tell you I’ll love what’s inside just by looking at the artwork. I am the embodiment of a wine marketing department’s dream consumer. Pull me in with a compelling graphic. Hook me with the creative description on the back. The better the label, the better the wine. Must be true, right?
One such wine is called “Abstract.” A red blend so abstract that it’s hard to even find the name on the bottle. The only words scrawled on it are, “Vandalism Is Beautiful.” Its imagery conjures up the Rolling Stones’ “Exiles on Main St.” album – a collage of dozens and dozens of tiny, sepia-tone photos. All seem to represent a blend of iconic and obscure pop culture. Collectively, these images tell you what to expect when you pop the cork. In their words, you find, “…opening aromas of muddled blue and blackberries with a frame of dark chocolate brownie and seasoned leather.” Doesn’t this sound a little bit like Mick Jagger? Or wait … maybe it’s a blend of Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. “…The wine enters with class, being soft and lush, with notes of ripe plum, boysenberry and Santa Maria tri-tip. Grippy, chewy tannins, the wine closes with pleasing sarsaparilla and black currant.” Whoa. Sign me up!
Here’s another. Juggernaut Cabernet. Its label features a fierce lion – monstrous in its rage. Claws out, teeth bared, it’s ready to tear into something, like perhaps your preconceived notions of cabernets as being boring reds. This, they’re telling you, is entirely different. It is “Harnessing the Power of Nature.” Its grapes are grown in such a challenging, steep, rocky hillside environment that its sheer “true grit and determination yield spectacular results.” Words like “bold,” “fierce, and “brave” describe its flavor. And perhaps with a nod to relating to how difficult it is to make it in today’s craggy, uncertain world, Juggernaut knows that “overcoming hardship builds character.”
Good times
Arguably my favorite is a wine whose label features dozens of sideshow performers from an old turn-of-the-century traveling carnival. The cabernet is rebelliously named, “Freakshow.” Front and center the label features The Strongest Man on Earth …. Huh? … On a bottle of wine?!! Picking up the bottle, you peer at the label more closely and mutter to yourself, “Who else is on this?” Look at that! There’s a magician who can levitate a woman. Wait! There’s a mermaid! What’s this? … A chimpanzee dressed as a ringmaster, complete with a top hat?!
Curious about what it tastes like, you cradle it in both hands as you turn the bottle around to read the back label, which is literally in the shape of a circus ticket. “Admit One,” it reads. Aside from the usual health warnings, that’s all it says.
What it’s really telling you is that the wine you’re so carefully holding is your ticket to a good time. Depending on who you drink it with, it might even be the greatest show on the planet! One reviewer was even delighted to learn that the label glows in the dark.
Hmmm…$20? “Oh, what the heck,” you might say to yourself. “I’m worth it!” And into your grocery cart it goes without giving a second thought to what it tastes like. All the other wines around it plead with you to buy them because they’re bursting with a blend of fruit flavors with blah, blah, blah undertones.
Well, let me tell you, Freakshow could taste like monkey piss, but I don’t care.
I’m gonna have a three-ring circus in my home tonight!
