issue #1

unwi n ed
Vintage 2015
2015
Vintage

18
26

14

CONTENTS

Six whining reviews

Guaranteed to get you white girl drunk,

pairs nicely with 100 calorie salad, Keeping Up With the Kardashians episodes
and embarrassing but lol hashtag moments with your fave babes. Low calorie
so that you can fit into that figure hugging
thigh showing hot pink dress. Best drunk
at pre drinks or out of a flask in the girls
bathroom.

Bought this for underage teens in the

carpark and they loved it, sickly sweet,
low alcohol but will give them enough of
a buzz to pretend to all their friends that
they are drunk as fuck. Pairs nicely with
making an easy $10, best drunk with
music that is ironic yet enjoyable One
Direction soundtrack or if they are wannabe 90s kids doing a spice girl rendition
with hairbrushes.

Could only tolerate half a bottle 3/10

could drink about one tenth of a bottle
before puking in disgust 1/10

Couldnt tell you about the taste but

worked great at Cessnocks local pub
as a weapon. Harsh yet direct flavours,
deep purple hue, best drunk necking out
of the bottle. Pairs nicely with 3 day old
cigarette smoke, bourbon and Centrelink
lines.

could only imagine myself drinking it this,

there was no way I was putting that in my
mouth -20/10

This pretty wine has notes of rose

gardens, disappointment and lost love.
It reeks of desperation and misguided
attachments. Best drunk playing The
Bachelor drinking game. For every
longing gaze, every time its love at first
sight, everytime the designated crazy
bitch does something cray cray scull
a glass. Youll go through most of the
bottle in the first 10 minutes. Lucky
for you this bottle can be bought as
cheaply as the love of the girl who gets
the honour of receiving the date card.

could drink this and then tastes just

as good coming up the next morning
9/10

Celebration of finally dumping that

cheating bastard, it will be all the
more sweeter experience with this
savoury champagne. A pretentious yet
sensitive wine with a hint of snobberry.
Easy to down the whole bottle without
realising it. Great with caviar but if
fish eggs dont float your boat then
just down it without accompaniment.
Preferred experience involves uplifting
female empowerment music just as
Aretha Franklin.

Chardonnay? More like chardonYAY! Bitter clowns tears with a hint of suspicion,
great with lobster thermidore, seafood
extender if prior is unaffordable. Best
drunk in the street.

Could drink this all night long 7/10

By Anna Sneddon

Could drink, drink, drinkkkk.

driiiiinnnnkkk, dri.....n....
kk.kkkkk............ 9 billion/10

Smart, pretty, intelligent, wine expert and looking

for the bachie 2015 Sam to come and sweep me
off my feet (pretty much the whole damn package)

PRIME TIME

Are you in
the mood for
drunkenly gushing
over abs?

Are you in the mood

for Fighting for
your families honour
with a smashed
bottle in hand?

Yes

STart Are You Drinking Alone?

No

Are you downing a

bottle because youre
single and alone?

Yes

Gator guys, pawn stars or

any other go channel red
neck reality show with a
bottle of Moonshine.

No

Modern day

Medieval

Drink everytime you see

boobs
Drink everytime
something is cooked to
perfection

Yes
Are you playing
a drinking
game?
6

Revenge with celebratory

bubbles.
Game of Thrones with a dry
red out of a goblet (or the
blood of your enemies)

Ancient era sexy

times

Then youre no fun at all

fantasy
Pretend history

Soft vampire porn

My Kitchen Rules with
a dignified and food
matched Chardonnay

Drink everytime there is

a life altering disaster
No

You want to be watching

the Bachelor with a
bottle of Moscato

YeS

The Tudors with a

regal barossa shiraz

True blood
Greys anatomy
with a
marlbourough
Savvy B

Hot doctors
Hot fbi Agents

Watch abc24 with a

lady grey tea
7

The blacklist
with a cultured
tempranillo

Silver Sack
to
Silve r Fox
Celebrating the big 5-0 of
a National Treasure.

unwined

issue #1

a 50th birthdAY IS SOMETHING TO BE CELLAR-BRATED

Once upon a time (or April 1965 to be

exact) a man named Thomas Angove,
unsatisfied with the restrictions of wine
bottles and half gallon flagons, and
inspired by the goat skin packaging
of biblical times, was struck with a
genius idea; to put wine in a bag, and
to put that bag in a box. Alright so
the bag in a box part wasnt quite his
brainchild, there was already a product
out there that Angove thought could
be applied to wine packaging. It was
a flexible plastic bag, contained within
a box that was used to transport
and dispense battery acid in garages
*insert jokes likening cask wine to
battery acid here*. Angove was met
with protest from peers, friends, and
even his own son, with the question
posed, whos going to buy wine in
a plastic bag? Well people did buy
wine in a bag, a lot of them did, and
a lot continue to do so. The popularity
of cask wine reached its peak in the
70s and 80s, however today it has
been recorded that one in every three

10

glasses of wine consumed in Australia

comes from a cask.
More about the packaging though.
The bag in a box was adapted and a
successful prototype was made, with
a patent established soon afterwards.
Scholle Packaging is the company that

worked with Angove to develop the

cask wine proposal, and if their super
seventies choice of an art nouveau
font for their advertising posters is
anything to go by, here at UNWINED,
we think Angove made a stellar choice
in doing business with them. Once
the Angove/Scholle partnership made

11

the dream of the goon sack a reality,

Australian graphic designer Wytt Morro
was responsible for the designs of the
cask wine boxes in the sixties and
seventies, with the original form taking
an almost Constructivist appearance,
with a stark red, white and black colour
palette and practical instructional

unwined

issue #1

diagrams to ensure optimum use is

achieved by consumers.
And so, the humble goon sack was
born, and countless memories of the
nights out of generations to come
would be wiped, replaced with bad life
choices and a nightmarish stream of
tagged photos
to wake up to.

Sure there are deeply engrained Aussie

traditions that do nothing to help shift
the stigma. The most famous of which
being Goon of Fortune, which relies
on the few key ingredients of a 4-5
litre goon sack, a hills hoist, enough
pegs to support said goon sack, and
a group of people willing to forego

shouldnt have, and your friends wont

let you live down your antics come
Monday mornings maths class.
Confucius said goon is a cruel mis
tress. And he wasnt wrong. She
plays with your heartstrings, tempting
you with her average cost of $3 a
litre and guaranteed six weeks of
freshness. You
tell
yourself
youll
only
have a couple,
but you know
youll end up white-girl wasted and
spending the next morning crying in
the shower.

confucius said; goon is a cruel mistress.

and he wasnt wrong.

And so, the

humble goon sack
was born, and countless memories of
the nights out of generations to come
would be wiped, replaced with bad life
choices and a nightmarish stream of
tagged photos to wake up to.
Championed by students and
backpackers, cask wine gets slapped
with the (unfair) stereotype of being
rubbish wine thats only consumed
because its a cheap way to get drunk.
This is true about the modest goon,
however we know theres more to it.
Right?

the making of good life choices for an

evening.
And perhaps we start contributing to
that bad name goon has for itself from
a young age. Drinking goon is a right
of passage for Australians. Its the first
thing that gets you pissed, drinking
with your mates at a local park, when
youre meant to be at the movies.
Its all you can afford and its meant
to be shared. You mix it with anything
you managed to pinch from mum, you
make out with some guy you really

12

Shes always there for you, never

judges you, and youve even begun to
enjoy her without three mixers and the
pressing urge to skol.
Youve grown up, and so has she. Lets
not pretend that the two of you dont
have that occasional slip-up and you
wind up still drunk at the christening
of your best friends first born. We said
grown up not grown boring.
Stay classy Sydney.

Goon teaches us valuable life lessons,

and really, we wouldnt want it any
other way.
You try to move on from her wild
charms, and yet come third year of
your Arts degree, youve found a box
of wine keeping permanent residence
on the top shelf of your fridge.

Maggie Rose Cashman - Second year design

student who moonlights as a cheap wine
enthusiast who is easily bribed into engaging in
criminal activity with the promise of fried food.
Follow her on @unwined_magsforgags.

13

unwined

issue #1

Silve r
Service
Its her birthday, so get a little fancy
Shes fifty years young! So next time
youre spending your night with a
cask, do yourself a favour, and dress
her up. Make that two a ten, you both
deserve it.

Goontang
Dont be shy - To be made in questionably large
quantities
2 parts Sunnyvale Fruity Lexia (to make it sexier)
1 part Fanta
A splash of regret for added
tang
A pinch of promiscuity
Loose morals to garnish

Heres a list of cocktails to help you say

Happy Birthday!

14

15

unwined

issue #1

shanghai goon

bad goon rising

Fills a standard sized punch bowl (whatever

that means)

We thought we should act our age

too! So heres one for a single serve Although we doubt youll be stopping at one

Banrock Station Still Moscato 2L Cask

Golden Circle Guava Nectar 1L

Enough vodka to forget the

Jackie Chan classic. Here at
unwined we recommend
Absolut.

50ml Stanley Fresh Dry White

30ml Espolon Reposado Tequila
40ml Just Juice Orange Juice
40ml Schweppes Passiona

Because youll Asolut - ely

love it.

Maybe.

16

17

GRAPE
EXPECTATIONS
In tribute to our combined affection
for wine and type, weve created a
definitive guide to the most common
categories of wine labels, and what
they say about the elixir inside.

unwined

issue #1

1. The French

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2. The Deconstructed
French

The great-great-grandmother of all

wine labels; The French is strict,
wordy, and full of information that
youll never use, let alone understand.
French labels tend to give an intricate
account of how the wine came to be;
from vineyard postcode to the number
of petite French feet that stepped into
each barrel. This love of utter clutter
and classical fonts means that most
French wine labels look the same and
are all equally intimidating.

Take that intimidating Frenchie and

remove all those hard-to-pronounce
words. Voil! The Deconstructed
gives the classy aroma of the French
label - tradition, upper class, a general
feeling of self-importance - but without
all those confusing French words. Its
back to basics with the wine type,
the region, the year, and the word
chateau thrown in somewhere.

What to expect:

What to expect:

Words like Bordeaus, Contrlole,

Bouteille and Proprit that are overly
difficult to pronounce and will generally
leave you feeling inadequate. Were
not going to deny it - this is the fancy
stuff - and it will taste sort of like dirt,
but in a good way.

Usually features a lovely pen and ink

drawing of a house that we are meant
to believe is the aforementioned
chateau. The winemaker probably isnt
French, but because of their dedicated
use of chateau, well overlook that.
More likely the winemaker is an Aussie
or American making wine in a french
style, which means it will sort of taste
like dirt and fruit.

21

unwined

issue #1

3. The Infograph

4. The MINIMALIST

What to expect:

What to expect:

A design made to mirror the absolute,

undeniable and irrefutable trendiness
of the brand, these labels scream
down with tradition and I like playing
Tetris with words. Purchase if you
want to show off your appreciation for
textual composition and a guaranteed
50+ instagram photo opportunity of a
wine label that is fun to look at, even if
it tastes like vinegar. (Its very possible).

Hints of instant- and text-messaging,

which might befuddle older consumers
who are used to a certain fullness in
their sentences.

22

Possessing similar notes of word

Tetris as The Infograph, The Minimalist
likes to show off the intricacies of
text-alignment and the liberal use
of white space so as to appear
thoroughly contemporary. Purchase if
you want to look like an overly-trendy
arts student who would rather be seen
drinking only the best Swedish-import
ros at the expense of eating.

Typographers will taste like the grace

and class you never had, even if
consumed from a stained coffee mug
while tearing up to Masterchef on a
Tuesday night.

23

unwined

issue #1

5. Animals Doing Things

A close relative of the Deconstructed

French, these labels tend to be quite
clear and simple, but instead of
featuring a picturesque chateau, they
are named after an animal, which is
often doing some sort of physical
(undoubtedly herioc) act. More often
than not, that physical heroic act is
usually leaping. From rams to frogs
to beagles, marketers clearly think that
theyre on to a winner with this one as
these labels are common as mud.

What to expect:

The label began as a solidly American

genre but us Aussies have definitely
taken to it, tending to combine the
apparently celebrated act of leaping
with a furry marsupial or other native
animal of choice. Will taste like all
the excitement and celebration of an
animal leaping, sometimes at a very
agreeable price (see Dan Murphys
aisle 3 at knee height - thank us later).

24

6. the funny guy

These sort of labels attempt to make

you smile as you walk by. The hope
is that you might appreciate a little
joke, a little fun, after looking at all
those chateau drawings. Be sure to
embrace
your
wine
choice
wholeheartedly as its clear that
you know absolutely nothing about
wine and are only in it for the lols.
(We feel ya).

What to expect:

Here at unwined, weve had enough

hangovers to know with full certainty
that these are cheap wines that taste
like hangovers. Often very sweet and
smooth, the Funny Guys tend to trick
you into thinking youre the funny guy
with an unmatched sense of humour,
when really you should probably
rethink bringing this bottle to meet
your gfs painfully conservative parents
for the first time, as they are most
definitly not in it for the lols.

25

fear not.
fellow wine
novices
Its official:
wine tasting is bullshit.

unwined

The human palate is arguably the

weakest of the five traditional senses.
This raises an important question
regarding wine tasting: is it bullshit, or
is it complete and utter bullshit?

issue #1

statistician and fellow wine enthusiast,

Robert Hodgson.

Exhibit A: Wine experts

contradict themselves.
Constantly.

Hodgson had analyzed a series

of wine competitions in California,
after wondering how wines, such
as his own, could win gold at one
competition, and end up in the
pooper at others. In one such study,
Hodgson presented blindfolded wine
experts with the same wine three times
in succession. And what do you know?
The judges ratings typically varied by
+/-4 points on a standard ratings scale
running from 80 to 100. In novice
terms this basically means they wildly
missed the mark.

While researching this topic, I stumbled

across a number of studies by

Old Hodgy also found that the judges

whose ratings were most on point in

There are no two ways about it: the

bullshit is strong with wine. Wine
tasting. Wine rating. Wine reviews.
Wine descriptions. Theyre all related.
And theyre all egregious offenders,
from a bullshit standpoint.

28

any given year landed in the middle

of the pack in other years, suggesting
that their consistent ON FLEEK
performance that year had simply
been due to chance.
I should mention that these judges
being surveyed were no ordinary
sap-suckers. These were experts in
pomposity; judges at the renowned
California State Fair wine comp - the
most prestigious in North America,
apparently.
It seems that if someone thinks they
can consistently rate the quality of
wine, it means one of two things:
1. No. They cant.
2. Wine-tasting is bullshit.

Exhibit B: Expert wine

critics cant distinguish
between red and white
wines
Strap yourselves in for a light chuckle
here: this is one of my favourites. In
2001, French researcher extraordinaire
Frederic
Brochet
invited
54
wine
experts to give their
opinions on what were
ostensibly two glasses
of different wine: one
red, and one white. In
actuality, the two wines were identical:
the cheeky bugger had used food
colouring to make one of them appear
red, and served it up at a balmy room
temperature.

The experts in pomposity then

proceeded to describe the red in
language typically reserved for such
wine. Phrases like straw-berry jelly
and burnt cherries were tossed
around, as they noted the flavours
imparted by its crushed red fruit.

Exhibit C: We taste with

our eyes, not our mouths
Actually, scratch that. We taste with
out eyes, ears, noses and even our
sense of touch. We taste with out
emotions (something Im sure last
seasons Bachelor Blake is used to).
Research out of
Cornell
Universitys Food and
Brand Lab has
shown that people
will rate food as
more enjoyable if
its consumed in the relaxed, candlelit
atmosphere of a fine dining restaurant,
as opposed a noisy fast food joint.

a 2006 study found that most people

cant even distinguish between pate
and dog food.
Not one of these 54 experts reported
that it was, in fact, a humble Savvy B
masquerading as a smoky cab merlot.

29

unwined

issue #1

Speaking of fine dining, a 2006

study by the American Association of
Wine Economists
found that most
people cant even
distinguish between
pate and dog food.
Yum.

able, woody, complex and

balanced. Sounds like the perfect

If youre in need of further proof, a

recent New Yorker piece described a
follow-up to Brochets extraordinaire
study, where wine experts were served
a basic-bitch Bordeaux in two different
bottles:
One bottle bore the label of a fancy
grand cru (whatever that means),
the other of an ordinary vin de table
(whatever that means) The experts got
extre-mely vocal in their appreciation
for the El Fancy, declaring it agree-

boyfriend! On the other had, the

cheapy-looking one was cast off as
weak, short, flat and faulty.
Remind me never to date a wine critic.

recently wrote a post entitled Wine

Reviews are Bullshit! Exclamation
mark and all.

there is no hard science involved in

wine reviewing... everyone makes up
their own process

Exhibit D: Even the

wine critics know wine
reviews are bullshit

In it, he writes:
There is no hard
science
involved
in reviewing wine,
no real way to
quantify results, no test cases, and
certainly no verifiable set of standards
that everyone adheres to. Everyone
makes up their own processes for
reviewing from Wine Spectator, to
my own publication, all the way down
to the most recent person who just
discovered how easy it is to set up a
blog of their own.

Joe Power, wine-taster and editor

of the popular Another Wine Blog,

He goes on to admit that this

includes his own reviews, stating that:

30

Overall character is that of a sex-loaded scarlet; endowed,

jaunty and erotically scented with every part smelling and
tasting provocative, flamboyant and blooming. Its gorgeous,
vaunting style is burning, mantling and amorous with an
extravagant softened that is grandiose, exotic and pursed lipped.
There is an edginess, sophistication and dominating air that
questions whether your palate has the true aptitude to handle the
complete clutch of this much worldliness

31

unwined

If you are wondering if this is going

to be some justification of why our
reviews at Another Wine Blog are just
spiffy and everyone else is full of shit,
you can stop wondering; ours are
bullshit too. It is just the nature of the
beast.

Exhibits E ZZZ:
Countless other studies
In 1996, research published in the
Journal of Experimental Psychology
concluded that wine experts cannot
reliably identify more than three or four
of a wines flavor components. Most
wine critics routinely report tasting six
or more. The wine review excerpted
on the previous page, for example
(which is a real review, by the way somebody actually wrote those words
about a bottle of wine, in earnest) lists

issue #1

the following components in the wines

principle flavor profile: red roses,
lavender, geranium, dried hibiscus
flowers, cranberry raisins, currant
jelly, mango with skins (Ed. note:
jesus wine-swilling christ, mango with
skins?), red plums, cobbler, cinnamon,
star anise, blackberry bramble, whole
black peppercorn, and more than
a dozen other flavors that I refuse to
continue listing lest my head implode.
Fun fact: MIT behavioral economist
Coco Krume recently conducted a
meta-analysis of the classifiers used in
wine reviews, and found that reviewers
tend to use cheap and expensive
words differently. Cheap descriptors
are used much more frequently,
expensive ones more sparingly. Krume
even demonstrated that its possible to
guess the price range of a wine based

32

on the words used in its review. From

a quantitative standpoint, Krume
writes, there are three types of words
more likely to be used for expensive
wines:
- Darker words, such as intense,
----supple, velvety, and smoky
- Single flavors such as tobacco
----or chocolate versus fruity,
----good, clean, tasty, juicy for
----cheap wines
- Exclusive-sounding words in
----place of simple descriptors.
----For example, old, elegant,
----and cuvee rather than pleasing,
----refreshing, value,and enjoy.
Additionally,
cheap
wine
is
preferentially paired with chicken and
pizza, while pricey wine goes with
shellfish and pork.

Using her scientific metric, Krume

goes on to create the most expensivesounding wine review ever penned: A
velvety chocolate texture and enticingly
layered, yet creamy, nose, this wine
abounds with focused cassis and a
silky ruby finish. Lush, elegant, and
nuanced. Pair with pork and shellfish.
If that sentence made you yearn for a
glass of classy red, congratulations,
theres a very real chance youre a
highfaluting asshole.

The Exception
You want an exception to the winetasting is bullshit mantra? Here it is.
In 2008, a survey comprising more
than 6,000 blind tastings found a
positive correlation between price and
enjoyment for individuals with wine

training. In other words: if youre a

wine expert, theres a chance youll
enjoy expensive wines more than
cheaper ones. HOWEVER, it bears
emphatic mentioning that whether this
suggests more expensive wines are
objectively better (which it doesnt) is
irrelevant, because among amateur
wine drinkers (which, lets face it, you
are), the survey found the opposite,
i.e. a negative correlation between
price and happiness, suggesting that
individuals on average enjoy more
expensive wines slightly less.
This led the researchers to conclude
that both the prices of wines and wine
recommendations by experts may
be poor guides for non-expert wine
consumers.

The upshot:-------------For the love of goon, screw the

experts. Drink what tastes good or
whatever you can afford, were not
ones to judge.

Greta Baillie is a second-year UNSW student

and regular contributor at unwined. Her interests
include drinking wine, reading Harry Potter,
watching David Attenborough documentaries and
channelling Miley Cyrus - simultaneously. Follow
her on Twitter at @unwined_gretdog

33

HUNTER
GATHER
boutique camping festival

a 3 day celebration of expression

MUSIC | ARTS | FOOD & WINE

240415 - 260415
ALLANDALE WINERY & parklands

MUSIC
JAMES HOLDEN WOLF PACK ERATIK
CODA FAACHI BASSIC
LUXE ELLEN ALIEN FACTORY FLOOR
CHE FU & KING CAPSI SAGE FRANCIS
SARITAH OKA ALEX KID
ARTS
INSTALLATIONS SHOWINGS
FEATURE PIECES Clothing optional
FOOD & WINE
TASTINGS LOCAL PRODUCE
SEASONAL WINES

unwined

issue #1

contributors
UNWINED EDITORS

SILVER SACK TO SILVER FOX

ANNA SNEDDON

WORDS

http://www.canberratimes.com.
au/act-news/cask-goon-wine-not20131113-2xg2r.html

GRETA BAILLIE

MAGGIE ROSE CASHMAN

IMAGES

MAGGIE ROSE CASHMAN

http://timmey.hubpages.com/hub/
Australias-Most-Famous-DrinkGOON-backpacker-travel-drinkalcohol

*http://www.thehippocket.com.au/
goon-bag-half-century/

which wine?
WORDS
ANNA SNEDDON

six whining reviews

WORDS & illustrations
ANNA SNEDDON

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/
content/2015/s4178124.htm
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/
food/australias-iconic-cask-winecelebrates-as-the-box-turns-50/storyfneuz92c-1227236944864
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/
food/cask-wine-turns-50-and-itstime-to-pay-it-some-respect/storyfneuz92c-1227298892034

36

http://askforcask.com.au/dev/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/Scholle_
Wine_cask_ad_1970s.jpg
http://www.smh.com.au/
entertainment/your-perth/50-years-ofcask-wine-the-goon-bag-bangs-on20150224-13mn8p.html
http://www.designsnext.com/20birthday-cupcakes-designs/

silver service
WORDS & illustrations
MAGGIE ROSE CASHMAN

http://www.wine-economics.org/
workingpapers/AAWE_WP36.pdf
http://www.anotherwineblog.com/
archives/11573#.VWaJyGSeDGd

IMAGES

fear not, fellow wine

novices
WORDS
GRETA BAILLIE

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.co
m/736x/94/02/06/94020600f9afd869
c2b2f4b444c9a3d6.jpg
http://38.media.tumblr.com/564ea22
6ec699fcabf54a6c08f7aa0e1/tumblr_
ncxiywqSXR1rcf4rko1_250.jpg

http://io9.com/wine-tasting-is-bullshitheres-why-496098276
http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/
abs/10.2466/01.PR0.111.4.228-232

37

grape expectations
WORDS & illustrations
gRETA BAILLIE
http://www.bauerhaus.com/whatdoes-your-label-say-about-your-wine/
http://www.grubstreet.com/2011/06/
sloshed_maybe_we_should_be_jud.
html

images
http://data3.whicdn.com/
images/66517853/original.jpg