“Renegade: a deserter from one faith, cause, or allegiance to another; an individual who rejects lawful or conventional behavior.” That Webster’s Dictionary definition is hardly a flattering description to add to a man’s name. Especially when the man was a devoted and loyal, if not brilliant, servant to the company that is now smearing him on billboards and advertisements throughout the country.
Not that the marketing men at Foster’s have that intention. No doubt it is just some smart advertising whiz kid who has never looked at a dictionary who thinks “renegade” fits a man who quietly went on experimenting when his superiors had told him not to bother wasting his time searching for a way of making the great Australian wine. Perhaps they meant to call him a “maverick”, though even that fails to capture the essentially conservative nature of Max Schubert, the company man who kept at it and, in the early 1950s, created the Grange Hermitage, which helped transform Penfolds from being makers of cheap fortifieds into one of the great wine companies of the world.
In the years since Foster’s took over, with its notion of a virtual wine company that could mass produce and sell wine like beer, the reputation of Penfolds has slipped again. Promoters of Fast Moving Consumer Goods had no interest in brands like Grange, St Henri and Bin 389 or understanding of the heritage behind famous labels like Lindemans, Wynns and Leo Buring. At Foster’s, they trashed them all in the search for products that could be made and sold in the same year without all that nonsense of expensive small oak casks and patient cellaring and the attention of dedicated winemakers who were the successors of Max Schubert.
And then came the day when Foster’s realised that selling wine was not the same as selling beer and the company had to write off billions of dollars on the goodwill of the brands they had accumulated. So what to do now? Why, let’s go back to pretending that we are once again artisan winemakers. Resurrect that old bloke who invented Grange. Putting him on the billboards won’t cost us anything because he’s long dead.
So Max Schubert has made his comeback and he ought to be turning in his grave as he remembers the parsimony with which his employer treated his retirement. The loyal servant of Penfolds had always hoped his farewell would be celebrated in that old fashioned way with a good watch. A Swiss Rolex was to be his pride and joy but he just got a Japanese Citizen and for the rest of his life there was not even a free case of his masterpiece every vintage.
Think of that corporate meanness every time you see that renegade advertisement, for Max Schubert had plenty of reason to be a deserter from his allegiance to Penfolds. Perhaps the ad man was right all after all!
Disclaimer: Richard Farmer in a former life was a wine merchant who once sold 1971 Grange for $7.99 a bottle while his brother David, on a famous occasion, celebrated Max Schubert’s genius by holding a tasting with him and a few friends of every Grange ever made, which was a wonderful way to knock off $50,000 or so in a couple of hours. Richard Farmer still resents not being invited!
Since the Foster’s debacle at Penfolds, I find that a toke or 7, on a Blue Mountains Madness spliff followed by a shot ot two of ’48 Corio whisky, is all the go in my social circle….also, warm turps in cold milk is a blast on a cold morning after you’ve woken up under a parked car near home……
Ralph you are being to kind to Fosters, but I must say that the company is still recovering from the bashing it got under Elliot all those years ago. How can you go broke selling beer in Australia?
Will the new owners of Sepplesfield do any better with the heritage stocks of fortified wine? These really are irreplaceable. New St Henri look-a-likes at whatever price point can be churned out relatively quickly, but it takes a generation or two to build a solero system.
Richard, my memory of these things may be shaky but I think you might be blaming Fosters for a lot of the things their predecessors, Southcorp, did to the various grand labels within their portfolio. In recent years Fosters have been working to resurrect brands like Seppelt and Leo Buring that had originally been thoroughly trashed by Southcorp. Anyway, whether Fosters or Southcorp, it seems to me that the real problem is the cult of the “brand manager”. These young men and women would come to the company with a history marketing soap powder, TVs or used cars, usually anything but wine. They would have bamboozled senior management, themselvs without wine background, with their line of spin to get the job. On arrival, they would immediately rush to make their mark on the product, changing labels, price points, promotional strategy etc. etc. etc. with absolutely no interest in the traditions, history, heritage, or past commercial successes of the product. By the time their strategies had come home to roost, destroying once proud and successful brands, usually after about two years, the brand manager would have gone on to their next “challenge” in another company, adding wine marketing to their C.V. Rouge Homme, Lindemans Hunter wines, Seppelt Great Western table wines, Leo Buring and others were recipients of this disastrous treatment.
How will the revisionist identify the opportunist in the years to come ?
Yes, Darby, those fortifieds are a treasure beyond dollar value and unlike table wine absolutely irreplaceable. I suppose Seppeltsfield is an example of Fosters’ inability to understand the heritage value of a family of wines. Not just the wine, but the unique nature of the place itself. Fortunately they didn’t muck it up, thanks in large part to winemaker/blender James Godfrey, and the new owners are making all the right noises regarding its future.