The Auswine Forum

We have just drunk our last Wynns Oven Valley Burgundy (Shiraz) - a 1991 - it made me wonder how many icons of the Australian wine industry have been killed off by marketing departments. A couple have made come backs like Hardys Tintara and Seppelt Moyston. Lindemans Hunter River may yet survive but that is probably line ball after years of terrrible management. I suppose the list is long Woodleys maker of the famous treasure chest now barely remembered by Queen Adelaide.

When has something died and when merged into something else?
What do you mourn the loss of?

DJ wrote:What do you mourn the loss of?

Being a Pom, the Rugby World Cup

Cheers

Dave

Tollana Eden Valley Cabernet.

The current Tollana wines aren't the same thing

Seppelt Dorrien

The last released was the sensational 99 although there has been at least 1 subsequent bottling at least, but where has/have it/they gone???

Seaview

Delegats Reserve

Yalumba Carte d'or Riesling. Remember Manuel and Car Door?

Flagon "Blackberry Nip & Lemonade"

Maria

Lindeman's Cawarra is not what it was either.

Worthwhile reading Len Evan's tome as that should set the scene with regards to which labels have withered away.

cheers

Carl

Anything under the Tulloch name, Metala white label, and many wineries bought out by big companies. Ingoldby, for example. Ten years ago I'd probably have said Seppelt as well.
But as a global brand name, Lindemans is the most egregious example. Once making some of Australia's best wines, these days it has a few second rate Coonawarras and the rest is just commercial mainstream cheapies. Very sad indeed.
cheers,
Graeme

GraemeG wrote:Anything under the Tulloch name

Not anymore. They are owned by Tullochs again...and making good wines.
GW

most of the Rosemount range

or was that corporate greed I can never remember

I drank my last 1986 Kaiser Stuhl Red Ribbon shiraz a couple of years ago. It was superb, and IIRC I bought it for a few bucks on release. The label disappeared into the Southcorp abyss a decade or so ago.

Dave Dewhurst wrote:

DJ wrote:What do you mourn the loss of?

Being a Pom, the Rugby World Cup

Cheers

Dave

Um, Dave, the Poms still have the Rugby World Cup. Or are talking the future here?

Gary W wrote:

GraemeG wrote:Anything under the Tulloch name

Not anymore. They are owned by Tullochs again...and making good wines.
GW

Having not tasted the recent efforts, I'll have to take your work for it. But the Hunter can still offer Wyndham and Hungerford Hill as lost causes.
There's always one more name that's only a shadow of its former self!
cheers,
Graeme

David wrote:Yalumba Carte d'or Riesling. Remember Manuel and Car Door?

I remember the ad well, it was brilliant - I hope someone, somewhere has a copy and puts it on YouTube one day. I'd guess the wine probably couldn't be named that now anyway with all the latest restrictions on the use of European names/terms.

Back to the original question - I guess I can probably look up a list of casualties in recent years under the Fosters/Southcorp portfolios and take my pick (a few notable ones have been said already).

Cheers,
Ian

Limdemans Pintara. Light red made from Rubired grapes.
Bruce

Tollana Eden Valley Cabernet.

And the TR16 Eden Valley Shiraz. I recall the 1996 with a great fondness.

The so-called resurrection of the label is a marketing travesty.

Where and with whom did those vineyards end up?

I still look out for shiraz from Eden Valley. Hartz Barn, Radford Dale, Torzi Matthews, Heathvale. Special stuff.

Tristram

It is a special skill - destroying a powerful brand - degrading established labels with long and revered histories.

They are like generals who keep flinging more troops into hopeless battles just because of the "plan".

For this they are paid salaries often exceeding $250K.

Though the people at the Southcorp/Rosemount stable have an almost complete monopoly on this, they are not alone.

However it is all part of a cycle; the founder works his butt off establishing the vineyard and beginning the wine; the second generation take over and build the business and too often the third generation have other aims and sell to corporates. These have one aim, especially nowadays with management options, and that is to enhance the short-term profit.

If that means that you have to write-down your shareholders' assets - so-be-it, for the same turnover that was insufficient before is now also enhanced (as a percentage of the reduced capital) and of course you get a bonus for increasing the ROI.

What about the simple, clean, classic Mildara Coonawarra labels; Stanley Leasingham; Hardy's numbered bins?

Oy vey - you've made me feel old!

GG

SueNZ wrote:

Dave Dewhurst wrote:

DJ wrote:What do you mourn the loss of?

Being a Pom, the Rugby World Cup

Cheers

Dave

Um, Dave, the Poms still have the Rugby World Cup. Or are talking the future here?

Aahh, that's my clairvoyance getting me in to trouble. "Imminent" would have been a better word!!

Cheers

Dave

n4sir wrote:

David wrote:Yalumba Carte d'or Riesling. Remember Manuel and Car Door?

I remember the ad well, it was brilliant - I hope someone, somewhere has a copy and puts it on YouTube one day. I'd guess the wine probably couldn't be named that now anyway with all the latest restrictions on the use of European names/terms.

Cheers,
Ian

I just noticed Yalumba Carte d'or is back (well a Merlot anyway) and did a quick google and found someone posted the original video from back in 1983. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzx0hTNCHWg

Not sure if you would ascribe the execution to a marketing dept but the slaughter of Rothbury Estate has to be right up there.

Cheers

Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet since 1999; basically since Rosemount got its hands on it. Never been the same since. I'm still drinking the 98s and loving them. Everything from 2000 onward tastes like sickly cordial by comparison.

Wycroft wrote:Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet since 1999; basically since Rosemount got its hands on it. Never been the same since. I'm still drinking the 98s and loving them. Everything from 2000 onward tastes like sickly cordial by comparison.

Wycroft, I thought you would have mentioned Rycroft

cheers

Carl

The Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz has been very ordinary since the 1998 vintage, which will continue to drink beautifully for some time yet.

I also think the Penfolds Bin wines are not as good as they used to be. They have been ordinary since Rosemount took over Southcorp, and have not improved under Fosters.

Sorry Griff, the only reason for that is my ignorance - I'm not familiar with it.

griff wrote:

Wycroft wrote:Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet since 1999; basically since Rosemount got its hands on it. Never been the same since. I'm still drinking the 98s and loving them. Everything from 2000 onward tastes like sickly cordial by comparison.

Wycroft, I thought you would have mentioned Rycroft

cheers

Carl

Ryecroft's last mistake was being taken over by Rosemount... The actually seem to have a tortured path to obscurity, started by Jim Ingoldby, taken over by Reed Consolidated, who also owend Tulloch in the Hunter, then bought by Krondorf in 1982 and I then to Rosemount in 1991 when Krondorf foundered. (from Len Evans Complete Book of Australian Wine, 1984)

Still, out of that came Rosemount Traditonal ( a different blend to the Ryecroft Traditional), Show Reserve McLarenVale Shiraz , GSM and Balmoral Syrah, then they got driven into the ground some years later.

Thank you RB, via Griff, a lovely little history lesson for a green Kiwi boy.

So nobody has anything to say about the classic old Yalumba Carte d'or commercial?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzx0hTNCHWg

1) what a great ad
2) boy, I'm still pretty young! That's the first time I'd seen it, let alone heard of the Yalumba 'car-door'

On a tangent - but possibly also an example of good wine being ruined, although it was never pitched as being particularly great by its producers - my father says he's certain that from about 1974 to 1982 the Orlando Coolabah reds were actually very good wines.

Does anyone have an opinion on whether they were indeed a very good drop for a cardboard box wine?

I certainly recall him being in good humour over the period! But perhaps that's just the naive recollection of a child; after all, I was born in 1974.