What's that wine you liked a couple of weeks ago? That's one of the questions I'm most often asked, and the one most likely to turn me into an inarticulate fool. The interrogator tries out different sounds, grasping for some reminder of an instantly forgettable name. I shuffle through the sloppy card-index of my mind, trying to spot the right answer. Neither of us is able for tongue-twisting, mind-numbing wine labels.
Now we're on treacherous ground. I don't want for a minute to suggest that august wine estates with centuries of tradition behind their somewhat cumbersome titles should jettison their patrimony. Imagine how much poetry and mystique Bordeaux would lose without impossibly evocative names like Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou or Chateau Malescot-Saint Exupery. Or Burgundy without the likes of Vosne-Romanee-Grands-Echezeaux. It doesn't matter a jot that grand wines should sport flamboyantly arcane titles. But for more modest drinking, it may be a different matter.
The bald truth is that it's a heck of a lot easier to say Blue Nun or Black Tower than Hattenheimer Nussbrunnen Riesling Spatlese Schloss Schonborn - even though you surely wouldn't find these old war horses of 1960s commercialism more attractive to drink. When it comes to wine names, Germany's problem is acute. But bigger players like France, Italy, Spain and Portugal labour under difficulties, too, in an increasingly global market where vast chunks of the New World have a head start.
Look at Jacob's Creek, that insignificant little stream in Australia's Barossa Valley which has baptised a massively popular brand of wine - Ireland's favourite by a mile. Or Cloudy Bay, New Zealand's cult beauty, inspired by a misty sweep of Marlborough coast. What's in a name? Memorability. Marketability. In Australia and California for generations, the topographical features that have helped distinguish one vineyard from another have produced a torrent of snappy names. Hill of Grace. Koonunga Hill. Stag's Leap. Frog's Leap. Diamond Creek. Sequoia Grove.
We've lapped them up because they're easy to pronounce, easy to remember, compared with the awkward mouthfuls the Old World offers us. And wine's marketing wizards know it. So with every month that passes, along comes another bottle with one of these sound-alike labels - giving rise to a new kind of confusion. Was it Devil's Lair (expensive Western Australian) or Devil's Rock (budget German)? Fox Wood or Fox Mountain (both made by an Australian in the south of France)? Cape Mentelle (swanky Western Australian again) or Cape Reflections (Marks & Spencer-commissioned South African)?
Sorry, chaps, but it seems to me that these vaguely geographical or topographical names are getting out of hand. If you don't believe me, consider that recent German creation in the wide-bottomed bottle with the wavy blue line, called The Bend in the River. Maybe if I liked the wine better, I'd have more patience with the name - but somehow the whole package just reeks of marketing in Porsche Turbo-type overdrive. It's a happier situation altogether when a decent everyday wine is blessed with a name that's short, simple and still somehow true to the country of its origin. Figaro is a stroke of genius on the part of Aime Guibert of Mas de Daumas Gassac in t he Languedoc - a straightforward, tasty country wine with a name that's as close to the heart of French culture as Gitanes and Camembert. More recent arrivals, equally inspired in the birth certificate department, are the Spanish twins Basa and Baso. The feminine Basa is a light, perfumed white, the masculine Baso a more assertive red.
There's some indication that acronyms may be on the increase - another trend that could turn perilous. Michel Laroche's DLC labels (standing for Domaine de La Chevaliere, his southern French property), carry echoes of the DRC - shorthand for Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, the grandest estate in Burgundy. Clever or cheeky, depending on your point of view. There are other arrangements of capital letters, like J.P., the Portuguese best-seller (still an amazing bargain, by the way, at just £3.99). Single letters, too - from L de la Louviere in Bordeaux and Baron de L in the Loire to L Chardonnay Vin de Pays d'Oc. And now along comes a new wine from Rosemount in Australia called GSM (see below). In the Dublin restaurant where it was first unveiled a month or so ago, Denis O'Brien of Esat Digifone was spotted, lunching in a quiet corner. I reckon if he'd seen it, he might have bought the lot.
Humour to the rescue. Fun is one way forward through the maze - helped along by a sharp debunking jab in the ribs of wine's painful companion, pretentiousness. Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon in California is the master of this genre, simply calling his everyday quaffer Big House Red and his Zinfandel Cardinal Zin. Andrew Quady is another Californian who obviously enjoys a wry smile, naming his fortified port-style wine Starboard. Tesco takes the honest-plonk-with-no-big-claims approach to the absolute limit with its Spanish Tempranillo labelled Scraping the Barrel (see below) - a name so crazily downplayed that, even though it sounds appalling, you're unlikely to forget it. For bluntness, it almost rivals the Australian Sauvignon Blanc that came out a couple of years ago, called Cat's Pee on a Gooseberry Bush.
Mark my words, we'll encounter more and more names like these - pretending to sound modest but screaming for notice. They may drive us so demented in the end that we'll long for the muddlesome old tongue-twisters. For the moment, however - like some of the other slick inventions - they do have the knack of lodging in the mind pretty securely. Here's a random bunch of enjoyable forget-me-nots:
White
Villa Maria Private Bin Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, 1998 (widely available from independent off-licences, usually £8.99).
Easy to remember: this New Zealand name, chosen in the early 1960s to be international, sounds to me like a nursing home somewhere down around Killiney. Like all the 1998 New Zealand Sauvignons, it has much riper, more tropical fruit flavours than of yore, but is still in the winners' enclosure thanks to a bracing finish.
Huia Marlborough Chardonnay, 1997 (Searsons Monkstown, £11.95; also DeVine Wine Shop Castleknock, Grapes of Mirth Rathmines, Geraghtys Fine Wines Carlow, O'Keeffes Kilkenny). "Howiya?", that ancient Irish greeting, is how you'll remember this fine newcomer, also from New Zealand (where the Huia bird's tail feathers are prized adornments). It combines richness with freshness. Nothing over the top.
Red
Scraping the Barrel, Oakaged Tempranillo, La Mancha, NV (Tesco, £4.99).
"I wouldn't mind this at all on a Monday night," said a fussy wine friend, getting stuck into Tesco's jokey Spaniard. Not much in terms of aroma (unless you like musty cough bottles), but quite pleasant to drink, with slightly toffee-ish fruit flavours and good acidity. And I love the note on the back label, parodying so many others: "Grape: Tempranillo is a thick-skinned grape. It has no noble past or contrived pretensions. But it is deep, gutsy and emboldened in this wine by a brief liaison with oak."
Ed's Red, Tempranillo, La Mancha, 1997 (Tesco, £4.99).
I haven't written about Ed's Red for ages, having failed to see much excitement in a couple of previous vintages. But this 1997 is a cracker. And the name: could anything be easier to remember? See Bottle of the Week.
Amethystos, Domaine Constantin Lazaridi, Drama, 1996 (Oddbins, £9.99).
Amethystos is a brilliant name, sounding Greek, precious and purplish all at once. And the wine, from Oddbins's new Greek collection (see below), is pretty good too - very rich and warming, with an overlay of cinnamon and cloves on ripe red berries and a long, smooth finish. Regional Dry Red Wine of Drama, it says on the label, which sent me scurrying for the atlas. True on two counts.
GSM, Rosemount, 1996 (McCabes and a few other good independent off-licences, about £14).
The stylish newcomer from Rosemount is named after its grape varieties, Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre. It's an opulent big wine with lashings of vanilla and spice character from maturation in American oak, but still rather young. Keep it if you can. Indeed, find it if you can. Ireland only gets a dribble.
All Greek
What does Greek wine remind you of? Retsina and a nightmare headache? You're way out of date. In the past few years, the Greek wine industry has undergone a radical overhaul with assistance from British master of wine Maggie McNie, a woman well-known for forthright criticism. The result: an array of exciting new wines from interesting grapes. Amethystos, above, is only the beginning. Oddbins has introduced 24 other intriguing Greek wines into Ireland - whites, reds and a couple of sweeties.
All bluff
If you're anywhere in the south-east and feel like learning a bit about wine in an easygoing, informal setting, note that the Wine Vault in Waterford is running Saturday afternoon's Guide to Wine Bluffing sessions, with a talk, discussion and tasting. There's one today, 2 p.m.-4 p.m., a similar one on March 20th, and then the topics and wines change. Admission £7. Booking essential as demand has been brisk. Tel 051-853444.
Mouton's move
Baron Philippe de Rothschild, the company built on the success of Bordeaux first-growth Chateau Mouton Rothschild, is the latest heavy hitter to recognise the potential of Languedoc-Roussillon in the south of France.
UK managing director Douglas Morton recently revealed that Baroness Philippine de Rothschild and her two sons have bought Domaine de Lambert, an estate near Limoux. Extensive new vineyards will be planted.
The objective, presumably, will be to produce wines of better quality than the current range of Baron Philippe de Rothschild southern French varietals.