Captain Spurgle is a happy man. His cup, as they say, runneth over with the red, frothy stuff. Sparkling Burgundy, or as he declares proudly, Australian Sparkling Burgundy, is back on the map. Captain Spurgle, who bears striking resemblance to wine publicist Ian Loftus, is committed to a Sparkling Burgundy-led recovery. Recovery from gloom, doom, recessions, relationships, old age, whatever. Sparkling Burgundy will fix it. “I saw so many people sitting around looking down in the mouth,” says the Captain, “and I thought for days what to do about it. Then the answer dawned. Give them Australian Sparkling Burgundy.” At this stage it should be made clear to the uninitiated what exactly constitutes an Australian Sparkling Burgundy, for it’s the definitive oenological red herring. Full-bodied, frequently aged and mature, it’s a red wine put through the entire champagne process. When young it can resemble a jumbled mismarriage of ripe fruit, oak, tannin and fizz, but give it a few years and just watch how its components grow together. It’s fantastic with food. Once they get it in the mouth, says Captain Spurgle, people love the stuff. To try it and not to like it would put you in such a small, unpopular and tacky minority that all reasonable advice would recommend never to admit it. Captain Spurgle wants us all to celebrate with Australian Sparkling Burgundy. After all, it’s Australia’s unique wine, with over 100 years of heritage. “Stop the boredom, stop the whinging,” he decrees. “Have fun with it!” In addition to its unquestioned and uncompromising strength, arresting effervescence, brooding dark appearance, and its potentially lethal short-term side-effects, Sparkling Burgundy has a multitude of other benefits. It isn’t encumbered by wine bullshit, for one thing. Removed from the excessive poncy waffle that tends to accompany most winespeak, it’s neither the domain of the wine snob or the wine bore. You simply drink it, smile, and order another bottle. Or as Captain Spurgle has himself observed, you then stand around for hours and hours and tell each other lovely stories. There’s simply no point in claiming whether or not Australia makes the best Sparkling Burgundy in the world, for apart from the occasional foreign anomaly, we’re the only people who make it. In the most literal sense of the word, Australian Sparkling Burgundy is indeed incomparable. Amongst Captain Spurgle’s many powers is that of declaring national days and annointing monarchs. At the third Australian National Sparkling Burgundy, Day a stunning celebration that actually lasted for two days (did Captain Spurgle notice or is it that he simply doesn’t care for such nominal and urbane considerations?) at the Rose and Crown, a ripper Port Melbourne pub, he appointed Mick Morris as the Monarch of Sparkling Burgundy for 1993. Slipping under the regal robe surrendered by the preceding and inaugural royal, the raffish wine bar operator and sometime Melbourne City Councillor Alan Watson, the Don of Rutherglen red decreed that he preferred the taste of the fizzy red stuff to Champagne. Mick Morris is no stranger to Sparkling Burgundy – he estimates he’s been tasting and drinking it since the golden days of Colin Preece and Leo Hurley around 1946 – and says he enjoys the huge diversity churned out by modern Australian winemakers. As Morris describes, Sparkling Burgundy can be light or heavy, sweet or dry, tannic or as smooth as silk, oaky or without oak altogether. “I got to drink more Sparkling Burgundy,” says Alan Watson of his year in the monarchy. “What more could you want?” Watson, son of Jimmy, goes back to the great old Sparkling Burgundies made by Hurtle Walker, based on wondrously potent red elixir from Birks Wendouree. He remembers that throughout the 1940s, Jimmy Watsons was the only place in Melbourne pushing the drop. Watson dips his lid to Seppelts for persevering with the wine despite the poor times preceding its Captain Spurgle-led revival, bad times indeed epitomised by the utterly forgettable trend towards the galling spectre of Cold Duck. One aspect of Captain Spurgle’s recovery package is to initiate the Ian Loftus Trophy for the Best Sparkling Burgundy at the otherwise staid and uninteresting Melbourne Wine Show. Another feature is the Sparkling Burgundy Guild, a think-tank of expert spurglers established to ensure the quality and integrity of Australian Sparkling Burgundy. It will also act as an information centre ready to propel every one of the growing number of enquirers closer to the Real Truth about Australia’s unique wine. The Guild’s underlying mission, however, is to ensure that every major Australian ship, party, launch or celebration is toasted to the clink of glasses brimming with Australian bubbles, and dark red ones at that. Maintaining the strong nationalistic fervour integral to the Sparkling Burgundy revival comes a pearl of undiluted wisdom from none other than Captain Spurgle himself. “Don’t export a drop of the stuff,” he commands. “Tell the world how good it is, that it is the true Australian wine, and let them know that if they want to drink it, they have to come here first!” How can you add to that? Captain Spurgle for Prime Minister!
