NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...

NYT-1207: DINING & WINE
With Rude Names, Wine Stops Minding Its Manners ...
By WILLIAM GRIMES
A growing army of budget-priced wines with names l
ike Bitch and Fat Bastard have shoved their way in
to stores.
===== notyet
IT’S peppery and full of fight. The tannins have g
rip. The nose takes no prisoners. This shiraz is a
bitch.
It says so on the label. Royal Bitch is the name o
f the wine, one of a teeming sisterhood of caberne
ts and chardonnays from a variety of producers wit
h labels like Sassy Bitch, Jealous Bitch, Tasty Bi
tch and Sweet Bitch. They’re reinforcements for a
growing army of rude, budget-priced wines that hav
e shoved their way into wine stores and supermarke
ts in the past few years — most recently Happy Bit
ch, a Hudson Valley rose that made its debut last
month.
The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, an a
gency of the Treasury Department, approves about 1
20,000 applications for wine labels every year. Mo
st names are traditional, often genteel, especiall
y at the lower price points. It’s natural for a ch
ardonnay or cabernet priced below $15 or even $10
to buff the image a bit. Woodbridge, Coastal Estat
es and Turning Leaf could be suburban subdivisions.
Then there are the others. Wines like the Ball Bus
ter, a beefy shiraz-cabernet-merlot blend from the
Barossa Valley in Australia. Or BigAss Red, from
Milano Family Winery in California. Or Stench, an
Australian sparkler from R Winery, the company tha
t collaborated with the American importer Dan Phil
ips of the Grateful Palate in 2004 to get the post
feminist ball rolling with a grenache named, simpl
y, Bitch.
Like a slap across the face, Bitch grabbed the att