Wally Olins on Brand by Wally Olins

Author:Wally Olins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Published: 2013-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

Beer brands almost always emphasize their national origins. These are from (left to right) Japan, Czech Republic, India (but brewed in the UK), Italy, Singapore and China.

A similar formula applies in wines. French, Spanish, Italian wines are all categorized by region and grape. In addition there is the quality and nature of the terrain and the idiosyncrasies of the growers to consider. In France the categorization of wines is particularly complex, sophisticated and subtle. Wines from each region have markedly different characteristics. Bordeaux wines are quite unlike those from Burgundy: the grapes are different, the soil is different, even the shape of the bottles is different, and there are variations even within these two regions, each with enough subtleties to keep oenophiles gainfully employed on a permanent basis. In Germany until relatively recently wine labelling was so arcane that you needed a handbook to find your way around it. The opportunities this afforded for showing off were endless. Each region had different bottles. Hock bottles are brown. Mosel bottles are green. Wine from Franconia comes in a special stubby-shaped bottle called a bocksbeutel. All this is very important commercially. These complexities say ‘this is the real thing’. No imitations. That’s why French champagne producers who come from the area around Rheims called Champagne have defended their collective description so vigorously against producers of sparkling wines from other French regions and more particularly from other countries. New World wines from Australia, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa, the US and so on follow the same complex patterns although usually with rather less intricacy. So the end result of all this is that the nation itself is seen to be the font from which wine flows. That’s why the idea of Eurowine, wine from a cocktail of countries, seems absurd, even repellent.

The same issues apply with whisky. Scotch whisky is said to derive its particular characteristics from the natural qualities of local water and soil and from the inherited genius of those who distill it. Single malts come from different areas and each has its own special flavour. Irish whiskey (with an e) is different from Scotch, and Bourbon is different again. However clever Suntory the Japanese whisky distillers are, they can’t make whisky like they do in Scotland.

What all this boils down to is that in many kinds of food and drink, especially drink, nationality is some kind of seal of quality. Nobody in their right mind would buy Italian whisky or for that matter Scottish olive oil.

We all take for granted without really even thinking much about it that in the world of alcoholic drinks the nation and the brand are inextricably intertwined, but this is only the most overt manifestation of a relationship that has been around since goods were first traded, that is still very much alive, and that is being very rapidly undermined.

In the nineteenth century most countries made products primarily for their own domestic consumption although for some nations some kinds of exports were very important. Almost every manufactured product varied greatly by country.

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