Rick Burge releases ‘Hipster’ wine

Poking fun at hipster culture, Australian wine producer Burge Family Winemakers has launched a red blend called “The Hipster” in a bid to stay on-trend.

The Hipster 2013

As reported by Winsor Dobbin in his blog Gourmet on the Road, the wine is the brainchild of Barossa Valley-based winemaker Rick Burge.

Shunning the usual hipster cues of a cloudy appearance, minimalist label and a crazy mash-up of grapes, “The Hipster 2013” is a blend of 42% Garnacha, 31% Monastrell and 27% Tempranillo.

According to Dobbin, Burge was inspired to make the wine after reading a story about hipster wines – quite possibly db’s own news piece on William Fèvre’s glow-in-the-dark “hipster” Chablis.

“The notion that some young Turks are producing wines that equally hip marketers and sommeliers are foisting onto the market as ‘hipster wines’ intrigued me.

“As a consequence, and through a fear of missing out, I decided to make one,” he told Gourmet on the Road. ”

For the blend, Burge twisted on a wine he had already made called The Spanner – a Tempranillo/Garnacha blend – with the addition of Monastrell.

The result, according to Burge, was an “instant hipster wine” priced at AU$25 a bottle.

Despite having made a hipster wine, Burge is under no illusion of being one of the tattooed, bearded folk himself.

“I’m way too old to resemble a hipster, even in low lighting, but part of me still feels young occasionally,” he joked to Gourmet on the Road.

Fèvre’s “hipster” Chablis meanwhile, launched in October 2014 aimed at clubbers and partygoers as its ultraviolet ink and glows under UV lighting revealing a graffiti-style design.