The One Wine Trend I Want to Go Away (by Mary Orlin)

 

 

First we had “critter” labels for wine — you know, Yellow Tail, Little Penguin, Dancing Bull, Smoking Loon. Then came what I call “dessert” labels — Cupcake, Layer Cake. Let’s not forget the “mommy” labels — MommyJuice, Mommy’s Little Helper. Now we have what I’m calling “identity” labels — Middle Sister, Bridesmaid and Skinnygirl. Do we really need a wine label to tell us who we are or how we should be?

 

I cringe when I see these labels. There’s the Be. label, where each varietal is labeled something different. There’s Be. Flirty, Be. Bright and so on. The line of Middle Sister wines breaks it down to Drama Queen, Goodie Two Shoes, Forever Cool and more. I’ve also seen Bridesmaid and Mad Housewife wine labels. Please, please wine gods, make it stop.

I’ve written about how I think Skinnygirl wines — a concept where a glass of wine is only 100 calories (most wines are 120-130 calories per glass, so no big savings) is not only a bad idea, but I think it really denigrates women. On top of that, most of the wine in these bottles is plonk at worst to very simple and uninteresting but easy to drink at best.

Read on …