So it's au revoir, ma sherry
It's a big ask. Perhaps the most ever asked of an Australian wine drinker,
bigger than saying adieu to Aussie-made champagne and Chablis.
It's hasta la vista time for sherry.
Australian winemakers have to give the name back to the Spanish, a sad moment to be sure, for trifle makers, aged aunts and those for whom the feel of brown paper in the hand is the ultimate sherry moment.
So, out goes sherry and in comes "Apera". And Australian-made Tokay - never again to be confused with Tokaji, the real thing from Hungary - also gets a new moniker, "topaque".
The new names took 10 months of work and almost $1 million in research funding ($500,000 of it from the Federal Government) to deliver.
Just how wine drinkers will accept Apera and Topaque is unknown, but winemakers are likely to spend another million dollars in marketing to help them adjust.
"A name is a name," says Rutherglen fortified winemaker, Colin Campbell of Campbells Wines. "It's what we can do with it, and how it will translate into the marketplace, that will be important."
An agreement between the European Union and Australia, signed in Brussels last month, gives the phase-out dates for the final removal of all those borrowed wine names Australian winemakers have been using for more than a century, names like Champagne, Chablis, Hermitage, Port, Tokay and Sherry.
Some, like champagne and port, will be relatively easy to replace in drinkers' hearts and minds. Most of us will feel no different asking for a sparkling wine or a tawny. Other names, such as Sherry and Tokay, provoke far more angst, hence the search for strong replacement names.
Mr Campbell, chairman of the committee behind the Federal Government-funded Fortified Sustainability Project, sees the name changes not as the cause for yet more drinkers to give up the ailing fortified wine category, but as a new hope.
Apera, a play on "aperitif", will be relaunched as a trendy, fun wine to drink when the sun goes down. Topaque according to makers, sounds more refined than Tokay.
What's in a name?
THE search for replacement names for Australian-made sherry and Tokay took eight months. These were the finalists:
SHERRY: Apera
TOKAY: Topaque
And the winners are: Apera (pronounced a-PER-ah) and Topaque (tow-PAYKE)
Jeni Port
January 17, 2009
The Age
It's hasta la vista time for sherry.
Australian winemakers have to give the name back to the Spanish, a sad moment to be sure, for trifle makers, aged aunts and those for whom the feel of brown paper in the hand is the ultimate sherry moment.
So, out goes sherry and in comes "Apera". And Australian-made Tokay - never again to be confused with Tokaji, the real thing from Hungary - also gets a new moniker, "topaque".
The new names took 10 months of work and almost $1 million in research funding ($500,000 of it from the Federal Government) to deliver.
Just how wine drinkers will accept Apera and Topaque is unknown, but winemakers are likely to spend another million dollars in marketing to help them adjust.
"A name is a name," says Rutherglen fortified winemaker, Colin Campbell of Campbells Wines. "It's what we can do with it, and how it will translate into the marketplace, that will be important."
An agreement between the European Union and Australia, signed in Brussels last month, gives the phase-out dates for the final removal of all those borrowed wine names Australian winemakers have been using for more than a century, names like Champagne, Chablis, Hermitage, Port, Tokay and Sherry.
Some, like champagne and port, will be relatively easy to replace in drinkers' hearts and minds. Most of us will feel no different asking for a sparkling wine or a tawny. Other names, such as Sherry and Tokay, provoke far more angst, hence the search for strong replacement names.
Mr Campbell, chairman of the committee behind the Federal Government-funded Fortified Sustainability Project, sees the name changes not as the cause for yet more drinkers to give up the ailing fortified wine category, but as a new hope.
Apera, a play on "aperitif", will be relaunched as a trendy, fun wine to drink when the sun goes down. Topaque according to makers, sounds more refined than Tokay.
What's in a name?
THE search for replacement names for Australian-made sherry and Tokay took eight months. These were the finalists:
SHERRY: Apera
- Solzay
- Solperi
- Aperire
- Alphrette
TOKAY: Topaque
- Millifera
- Russet
- Muscadelle
- Allirea
And the winners are: Apera (pronounced a-PER-ah) and Topaque (tow-PAYKE)
Jeni Port
January 17, 2009
The Age