Yetti & the Kokonut B’Rosé? Wildman Piggy Pop Pet Nat? When I spotted these Australian wines in a shop, I started laughing. The names were cute, but I wasn’t ready to take the wine itself seriously. My rule of thumb has long been that if a wine has to use a funny name to get you to grab it, the liquid inside the bottle probably doesn’t have much to say for itself. Think Mad Housewife, Broke Ass, Fat Bastard, and the like.
But Ronnie Sanders of VS Imports, who brings the Yetti and Wildman wines to America, says both are so popular he can barely keep them in stock.
They’re part of a new wave of wines with tongue-in-cheek names that range from silly to punny to in-your-face sexist. But the point isn’t to cover up for weakness in the wine. Edgy winemakers are using the names to signal how different their wines are from traditional estates’ conventional vino.
The trend is booming. The surprise is how delicious the juice inside the bottles can be.
Until recently, names (and labels) of the good stuff were almost always formal, stodgy, functional.
Playful critter brand logos (which appeared after Yellowtail, with its jumping wallaby, launched in 2001 and became the bestselling wine in the U.S.) adorned cheap, generic plonk. Such labels as 3 Blind Moose, Smoking Loon, Elephant on a Tightrope—you get the idea—made wine seem less snobby and more approachable, but most of the wines were forgettable.
Then, about a decade ago, something began happening. “The natural wine movement raised amusing names and labels to a whole new level,” explains Sanders. “These counterculture winemakers want to communicate a different idea about quality wine. A new generation of retailers search them out because they resonate with younger drinkers. And social media has been a strong influence.”
U.K. Master of Wine Tim Wildman sketches the appeal of his Astro Bunny Pet Nat name and its mad label on his winery website: “. . .[T]he foaming candy pink, boozy fruity bubbles made you feel like that bad bunny in her spaceship and want to yell ‘F--- Yea.’” In other words, it’s all about the vibe.
On Instagram, vivid, cartoonish labels look a lot more fun than a dull chateau or winery name, or the owners’ names in black on white.
The cynic in me notes that thousands of wines on retail shelves must fiercely compete for your attention. Droll names are effective marketing. Each of the two friends who make Yetti & the Kokonut also has his own not-funny label, and Sanders says neither sells as well as their collaboration.