Hunter Valley winemaker, Neil McGuigan, is having to explain to everyone from freight forwarders to government departments regarding orders coming in from Newfoundland in Canada.
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They are his Dildo orders, and therein lies the problem.
“Because they’re not dildo orders,” he tells us. “They’re Dildo orders. And I have to keep spelling this out to people when I tell them about my new export business.”
And he lays blame for his Dildo dilemma squarely at the feet of a bloke named David Lunn, McGuigan Wines’ export sales manager for the USA and Canada, and Patt Rouble, active local distributor in Newfoundland.
For among the folk enthusiastically quaffing McGuigan wines over there are those across the island of Newfoundland, including an idyllic little fishing village of just 1200 people with the somewhat odd name of Dildo.
How it scored the name no one seems to quite know – theories range from its use as an archaic word once applied to cylindrical glass objects, to Captain Cook bestowing it upon a newly-created settlement as a form of whimsy (which he was known to do) while living and exploring in Newfoundland in the 1760s.
And don’t dare suggest to today’s locals that they change it, for the last bloke who tried that in 1990 found himself the brunt of wrathful Dildoians indignant at his slur against their cherished name.
Which brings us back to winemaker Neil, whose diversity of reds and whites now make up nearly 10 per cent of all Aussie labels sold in Newfoundland. Australian wines overall are now the third largest in imports right across Canada after vinos from the United States and Italy.