RKS Wine: Creative Label but What About the Taste?

When it is about wine labels and names for wine the Aussies lead the pack. You might want to think of it as a marketing strategy for Australian wines. No matter how fantastic your wine is if it does not sell what does the public care about a winemaker’s passion for the wine they have crafted? If you play with your label and name perhaps you’ll devise something cute and nab that wine drinker not necessarily based on quality but on image.

Coco Rôtie by Redheads Wine has a distinctive head turning label that being an ape with a crown. Did you know that Tarzan’s father was killed by the King of the Apes Kerchak but this is not the ape the label is referring to. Coco Rôtie is also a cute play on the French appellation Côte-Rôtie where you find Condrieu reds and whites at a very steep price. And wouldn’t you know it like the French in Côte-Rôtie Redheads is adding a bit of the white Viognier to its Syrah.

As we move on from the wit and fun is Coco Rôtie a decent wine? The 96 % Shiraz struts raspberry, blackberry, blueberry with a bit of earthiness like it is swinging through the aisles of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s flagship store in Rosedale Ontario. As for its taste will we have a “Me Tarzan you Jane moment? The Viognier takes the edge off the Shiraz softening the wine. There is blackberry, black cherry and a bit of burn on the finish which with Syrah one may often attribute to a bit of pepper on the palate or perhaps too high a degree of alcohol which can destroy characteristics of many a wine. This wine just manages to contain the alcohol and integrate it into the wine but it is a close call. I have two bottles of 2005 Cote-Rôtie in the cellar and the alcohol content is 12.5%. Do you want a big, bodied wine with elegance or one with high test alcohol?

Will hold until the end of 2024.

The higher alcohol content of the wine makes it a foodie wine particularly beef or lamb or vegetarian stuffed field vegetables such as zucchini, tomatoes, peppers stuffed with rice, tomatoes, onions, garlic and lots of dill.

For movies the wine pairs well with “Planet of the Apes”.

(Coco Rôtie 2019 South Australia Shiraz, Red Heads Wine, Angaston South Australia, $19,25, Liquor Control Board of Ontario # 108076, 14.5%, RKS Wine Rating 92/100).