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10 comments

Gaining a reputation as a successful host is about to get even easier.

Elegant makes a winner

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States have discovered that when it comes to impressing dinner guests, it’s not the quality of wine on your table but the type of label on the bottle that has the most impact.

“Forget bouquet, the colour and the aromas,” said Adam Sage in today’s Australian, “The American Association of Wine Economists, [suggest] smart vintners should spend more time designing labels than pressing grapes.”

And while that’s great news for anyone who harbours a secret collection of clean skins in their pantry, before you rush home with some masking tape and a pair of scissors, you might also want to consider what type of label works best.

Sage advises consumers steer clear of any bottle of wine that bears an animal on its label or describes its contents as “fruity” or “good with chicken and steak”.

While the best choices are found in bottles displaying abstract art or landscape designs that use more “highbrow terms” like “elegant”, “supple” or “intense” in their descriptions.

Cheers!

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10 comments

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- stephen says:
  
  04:40pm | 05/07/10
  
  Gold or silver medal emblems on the label are best if yer wanna give the bot. as a present, (they’ll love yer for it), otherwise it’s under 10 bucks fer me.
  
  Reply
Alexandra says:

04:48am | 06/07/10

Did I miss the cork or screwcap debate?
Susan says:

12:13pm | 06/07/10

Take care with them though, there’s a big difference between those medals from the Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide wine shows and the medals from some of the small country shows - especially the ones where it’s a country town nowhere near any wine regions! You’ll look a bit daft if you give one that has a gold medal from the Broken Hill show as a quality pressie…
- Brad Price says:
  
  08:59pm | 05/07/10
  
  Excellent article. Very true and just as we have all suspected and struggled to articulate so well, especially after a few glasses!
  
  Enjoy!
  
  Reply
- Mojo rising says:
  
  02:35pm | 06/07/10
  
  Lucy I’d like to read the Massachusetts institute of Technology findings more thoroughly. There must be so many unpredictable factors in the way a bottle of wine and it’s label is presented at a dinner table to influence guests that such a study would seem a little ludicrous.
  
  Adam Sage “advises consumers steer clear of any bottle of wine that bears an animal on its label”. Well wine lovers and anyone connected with the wine industry would tell you that judging by the success of YellowTail (Australian) brand in the States Sage’s argument doesn’t stack up. YellowTail has a kangaroo on the label.
  
  Who is this Adam Sage? Maybe he is just trying to plug old world wines.
  
  Reply
chris says:

09:48am | 07/07/10

Yellowtail is a marketing success; tanker-loads of ten-buck chuck sold to the American market; that doesn’t equate to a quality drop.
As long as you have either an Australian native animal or some faux Aboriginal motif on your bottle, you can bung bilge water in there and someone from the States or the EU will buy it.
- Seano says:
  
  02:51pm | 06/07/10
  
  I’ve never really bought cleanskins but like the idea of a wine lucky dip. But I just looked it up and apparently the individual bottle sold at my local aren’t reallly genuine cleanskins but generic wine marketed as such.
  
  A real cleanskin apparently can only be sold in sealed lots of 6 or 12 and are excess stocks being dumped on the market in a way that doesn’t hurt the price of the branded product. And hence the lucky dip aspect.
  
  Reply
- No Brainer says:
  
  09:14am | 07/07/10
  
  I still recall an article in the Age many years ago that had some pseudo-sophisticate ‘bang on’ about Victoria being free from the barbarity of concerns about alcohol consumption so that the ‘Victorian’s could grown up’ into the sophisticated world of wine consumption and all its social and palate stimulating benefits! But hey, as we suspected, it’s got little to do with taste, maturity or sophistication, it’s mostly to do with how easy a (it would appear majority) group of ‘wannabes’ can be easily manipulated by clever packaging! So comes the question, is the consumption of this substance for taste and social acumen or as we suspected all along a ‘smartly dressed’ form of self-medication!
  
  Reply
- Aussiewazza says:
  
  10:49am | 07/07/10
  
  SHUTUP SHUTUP. Theres an ocean of plonk we have to clear. B/S battles brains. There’s them wot know and them wot claim they know. And that’s the way with wine. I have my favourites and some are quite cheap. I have put a variety of wines out at a dinner and it’s interesting to see which is prefered and why. It’s THE KINGS NEW CLOTHES syndrome. Anyone my age will remenber where ‘classy’ was Asti Spumanti and later Blue Nun. I have enjoyed some very nice cleanskins. But marketing is presentation. HINT on how to impress:Damage the label with acid to make it look old and remove the year. Shake the bottle around in the vacuum cleaner bag, and put it away. When the guests are seated and have had a few, put on a gracious but hesitant expression, carefully retrieve the bottle (Make show of wiping off the dust, mumble something about was keeping it for a ‘special’ occassion, pour it and watch the eyes light up.
  
  Reply
- John T says:
  
  11:46am | 07/07/10
  
  A friend of mine who produces wine on a modest scale is giving the term “mixed dozen” a new meaning. He’s experimenting with label designs and to test the market has made up a few cartons of red where each bottle contains the same (IMO very drinkable) wine but with one of two labels
  ( neither of which features an animal or includes “good with chicken or steak” or “fruity” in its description).
  .
  
  Reply

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