Drinks News

This summer's best Australian wine label

Here's the story behind it.

By Sophie McComas
Patrick Sullivan's Pink Pound Rosé
The labelPatrick Sullivanhas stuck on his new rosé has got to be the coolest design to adorn a bottle of Australian wine in years. The Gippsland producer has capture the attention of many drinkers with his radical takes on sauvignon blanc and other orange offerings, and his latest foray into the pink is anything but forgettable.
ThePink Pound Rosé, a blend of Yarra Valley pinot noir, sauvignon blanc and Gippsland gewürztraminer,sports a highlyeccentric candy-coloured label designed by Helsinki artist Eero Lampinen. Lampinen's work, Depletion, depicts a neatly coiffed blondgentlemanbather surrounded by birds - blue-footed boobies to be exact, found in tropical regions of the Pacific Ocean - lost in thought(or possibly just a little sun-drunk). His lips are parted, his skin singed pink around crisp tan-lines. Just out of the bather's gaze, the body of one of the birds has cracked open, revealing a mess of wires and mechanics inside: all is not as it seems. 
Eero Lampinen's Depletion.
Here's Sullivan's take:
"As an 18-year -old, I moved to London with a good friend of mine, Xavier Goodridge,of Xavier Wine in Heathcote, Victoria. Xav worked in a wine bar called Hamptons just off Trafalgar square. Through this wine bar we made friends with a couple of gentlemen,Count Roberto and Colin**…
"We would spend most nights drinking with these two and getting caught up in their extreme stories, which were so far away from the stories of our country Victorian childhoods. 
"I was back in London last year and ran into Colin at Halfway to Heaven (a bar named for its location halfway between Soho and Heaven nightclub). He said,"darlink,when are you going to make me a wine?" So in that and through my love of rosé, I did. That's why it's called "The Pink Pound"- that and**the term being a reference to the economic power of the gay community.
"While I was working on other projects I mentioned the new rosé to [illustrator] Kelly Thompson. She immediately lit up and said her friend Eero [Lampinen] had just completed a piece that was so very much perfect. I took one look and thought,'this will make the boys happy!'" 
 
Patrick Sullivan's Pink Pound Rose is available for $30 per bottle online at patricksullivan.com.au/product/pink-pound-rose or at drnks.com
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  • undefined: Sophie McComas