How long has it been since we befuddled wine consumers were swamped with a flood of “critter wines,” new lines of inexpensive wines with fanciful names associated with a menagerie of animals from koalas to penguins? From the looks of crowded supermarket shelves in California, critter wines are still with us, but in just the past few weeks I’ve received a rash of news releases flogging new lines of wines with wild and wacky names that may eventually put critter wines on the endangered list.
Has wine branding gone a little wacky or are wine marketers making a lame attempt to emulate the oddball, often suggestive brand names used by micro-beer producers? I don’t have the answer, but maybe you might after reading the following bits on a few of the questionable wine brands that I recently heard about.
The first nutso wine name that got me wondering about the sanity 
of wine marketing was ‘Lipstick on a Pig’ wines, a not-so-subtle attempt to capitalize on a very high-profile and controversial nominee in the recent presidential campaign. Thankfully the profile of that nominee is now much lower and we can only hope that the same will happen to the wines.
Then, in no particular order news came my way about a few more wacky and questionable wine names: A line of California wines loosely associated with disgraced football star Michael Vick; a collection of imported Italian wines called ‘The Sopranos,’ which I would think needs no explanation; and the most outrageous wine label in recent memory slapped on a Paso Robles Red Wine bearing the name ‘La Mort du Roi,’ from Stillman Brown, surely one of California’s more eccentric wine gadflies
Vicktory Dog wines (don’t you love the catchy name?), produced in Buellton, California, carry labels with the images of 22 pit bulls rescued from the Michael Vick dog fighting case. Artist Cyrus Mejia, founder of Best Friends Animal Society, painted portraits of the dogs in hopes that people will change their perception of pit bulls. Sales of the wines will be handled by the Dog Lovers Wine Club, which will contribute 10% of sales to the Best Friends Animal Society. A noble cause to be sure, but I question the appropriateness of the association between a viscous event that repulsed many people and the sale of wine. The news release is muddled and so is the concept, and I seriously wonder if buying a bottle of wine is going to change anyone’s mind about pit bulls.
But the ultimate in creative promotion of a wacky wine brand is the full-court ‘celebration’ to take place this month at Trump 
World Tower in New York City to promote ‘The Sopranos Wines.’ The import company and a noted cable network will launch the wines at a wine tasting featuring nearly all the major players in the Sopranos television cast except for Tone, Carm and Chrissy. I guess they are too busy to join the rest of the ‘family’ in this oddball event. But you’ve gotta wonder why Tony Soprano didn’t think of the idea himself, like a nice Soprano Sangiovese to go with the pork sandwich at Satrales.
And then there’s La Mort du Roi, Stillman Brown’s obscure and off-center homage to one of his heros, Elvis Presley. The wine, made by Brown, who is also known for his Red Zeppelin Rhône-style blend, a not-so-subtle take off of another outrageously named Rhône-style wine showing a spacecraft hovering over a vineyard on the label, carries a reproduction of a Robert Cochran painting titled ‘Elvis Died for Your Sins,’ commissioned by Brown on the label.
Here’s Brown’s explanation for what he says is perhaps the most outrageous artwork ever to legally appear on a bottle of wine: ‘A materialistic culture, in which individuals strive to become powerful, wealthy and charismatic (or just worship those who are) should, indeed must have as its saint, its holy martyr, its sacrificial lamb and golden calf rolled into one and served hot, none other than Elvis Presley. This is a dogma fit for a King.’ Uh, right, I guess, but what the hell does that have to do with wine?
One is never sure if Stillman Brown is serious or just yanking the collective chain of the general wine public. Whatever, La Mort du Roi gets my vote for the most obscure wine-name concept…so far. As for the other wacky wine names, we can only hope that as much effort was put into producing high quality wines as was exerted on these questionable wine-brand names.
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