WineLife365

 From time to time you’ll have to listen to me rant about a particular wine bottle label.  An example would be the wine review that I shared with you on February 13^th. We tasted a wonderful, inexpensive French white wine from Domaine Des Cassagnoles.

If you recall, the bottle label forced me to do several Google searches just to figure out what the label on the bottle was trying to tell me.  I mean is it too much to ask for a winery to tell us would-be buyer some simple information on its label like:

1.) Who made the wine

2.) Where the wine came from

3.) What grape or grapes is actually inside of the bottle

4.) Some useful information like what to eat with this wine, if it needs to refrigerated or serve at room temperature.

Peter May’s book “Marilyn Merlot and the Naked Grape” showcases a growing marketing trend in the wine industry. The trend is that more and more wine brands are using amusing and outrageous wine labels. It has become a very successful campaign in recent years. One of the pioneers to use this marketing tool was Fat Bastard. The team responsible for Fat Bastard said that the name made “their product jump off the shelf and into shopper’s carts”.

Mr. May’s book celebrates the history of weird and wacky wine labels from all over the globe.  Mr. May is considered by many wine experts as the ultimate guru of outrageous wine labels.

Marilyn Merlot and the Naked Grape is an A-Z collection that illustrates over 100 odd wine labels.  Mr. May shares the stories behind all of these wacky labels in his book along with his own personal tasting notes of each wine.

The book makes for interesting reading if you’ve ever wondered what brands like Fat Bastard and others were thinking when they decided on their brand names and wine labels.

This book also makes us all realize that wine should be fun and not taken so seriously.