Contemporary trends in names of wines and wineries in the English-speaking world

Abstract

Over the last fifty years, the number of wineries in the English-speaking world has rapidly grown and with it the number of wines available has also increased. We are referring particularly to Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. With the increase in the number of wineries and wines has come an attempt by wineries to differentiate themselves by their names and the names of their wines. We discover that the names chosen mainly rely on regional history and culture as well as on humour. We take the Niagara region in Ontario, Canada, as our main example for systematic analysis, and then make reference to other English-speaking wine-producing regions in Canada (British Columbia), Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the west coast of the United States (California, Washington State and Oregon).