Melvyn Minnaar wonders about the reasons for odd wine names, and is tormented by the placing of an apostrophe

Let’s face it, there are some truly odd wine names out there. Yes, I realise it is a hoary subject that, in the end, leads nowhere. All that matters is whether what’s inside is good enough to drink. But sometimes, especially when another johnny-come-lately jumps the queue and bears a name that mangles brain cells, we need to object. Or not buy the darn bottle. Or be pleased.

Could it be that some producers take a perverse pleasure in thinking up silly appellations to challenge their marketing staff and designers? And what do we do when we detect the degree of pretence and aspirations to grandeur in the way the typography of the new-fangled name/brand/blend is stretched out over the label. Or when we notice the retro-snobbery (including those fake ‘established in 1630’ seals) in others?  It is all so no-where, and one simply tries to ignore it.

With wineries shooting up all the time as hedge-fund fortunes and other riches change hands, and with the trimmings of social status so specifically defined as to include your name on a bottle of expensive wine, one can understand that the run on original names takes its toll. And the fall-back on cliché or foolishness becomes inevitable. Maybe if all the talent is poured into the tanks and barrels, there’s little left to come up (hey presto!) with an original label on the bottle in the shop.

Naturally, not all those schooled in the art of wine making (and even selling) have also made it through the grammar lessons at school. (And one should be thankful for those like Whatsisname who writes such readable copy on – is it Flagstone wines?)

All those eagles 

Grammar, ah grammar. Which brings me to the question of how many eagles in that Constantia nest. Since it won the best red wine on show trophy with a 2006 Shiraz (a very smart wine, I agree)  in that, well, rather unspiredly-named ‘Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show’ - ahem - competition, Eagles’ Nest, the newcomer winery on the precious soil of Constantia, has been popping up in the news.

Should Lynne Truss have been following that news, she, profound prophetess of the apostrophe*, might just have had a comment or two about the wayward ways that little sign seems to float around the prestige Constantia property.

While the winery itself is meticulous in placing the apostrophe – as in ‘Eagles’ Nest’ – others, such as the Platter Guide 2008, simply ignore it. This week, a Grape reader spelt it Eagles’s Nest - claiming, no doubt, that ancient argument of those set in their grammatical ways which simply does not allow an apostrophe without its possessive ‘s’ after ‘s’.

Of course, the owners (as did those who thought up the original farm name) probably believe that their valuable nest up in the Constantia kloof forever played generous host to more than one eagle. Hence the plurality inherent in the name.

Yet I confess I cannot shift my sense that the plural form and that apostrophe look strange. My eye says it should be Eagle’s Nest, no matter how many eagles slept in that comfortable hide of twigs and stuff. And in fact the handsome label shows only one eagle, and a flowery twig that's maybe part of a nest being constructed.

Ornithologists will tell you that the great Aquila vereauxi, the famous Black Eagle that has made Table Mountain a habitat from time to time, has one partner only and returns to the same nest year after year. When little ones are born there, they are kicked out. (Each, no doubt, with an inborn aspiration to have a nest of one’s own – not to mention a nest with a view.) There may be chicks and a lovely wife (I’ve once seen them circling up above my little abode on the other side of the mountain), but I’m sure it’s very much a one-bird nest. At least, Eagle’s Nest reads so much more as, well, an individual thing.

* Lynne Truss is the author, if you didn’t know, of that unlikely thing, a bestseller about grammar called Eats, Shoots and Leaves .

• Link to Eagles' Nest website 

COMMENTS

From Rob Boyd:
So do you think owners and marketers are dumbing down wine labels ? Or what ?