This morning there’s been a bit of discussion between some of my mates over Yalumba’s recently launched $350AUD Cab Shiraz “super claret”. This led to a discussion of the differences between Australian and British nomenclature regarding wines, eg claret in Britain is quite often used to describe lighter style luncheon Bordeaux where as historically here in Australia any red wine can be referred to as a claret from a labeling perspective regardless of whether it’s indeed a “claret” in the British sense. A similar example would be “Hunter Riesling” which historically was in fact Semillon, etc.
At this point one of my mates brought to my attention that Leo Buring used to produce a “Chateau Leonay ‘Vintage Hock’”. Has anyone come across a wine being called Hock before? I’m at a bit of a loss, and a superficial attempt at googling yielded nothing other than the flickr photo link that led me to the search in the first place. I suspect Jeremy Holmes might have some insight as this is effectively in his back yard but still, I found it curious enough to ask all of you.
Here’s the Vintage Hock label in question.
And for good measure here’s the Hunter River Riesling label.
Andrew,
Now I am showing my age a bit, but when I started serving alcoholic bevs in a hotel I was 18, and we are talking 1985 here.
In those days every second drink that we served to anyone over 60 was a hock, lime and lemon, Hock beinga generic dry white, often served from flagon and often Riesling.
As far as the customers were concerned anything dry white was Hock, anything sweetish white was moselle.
In teh same way any softer red (normally Shiraz) was Burgundy, Semillon was White Burgundy, Chablis was anything dry (Semillon from Hunter), Claret was any full body red.
I am sure there were others.
No wonder varietal labelling was so successful.
I can only assume that hock came from a german white style.
I don’t have much of value to bring to this discussion…but isn’t Carlisles white wine ‘The Derivitive’ (which is awesome by the way) a modern version of what used to be called ‘hock’?
Derivitive is a blend of Semillon, Muscadelle, Palomino, and Colombard
Thanks Kent, that makes a bit more sense. I suspected it was a co-opting of an old world term being reapplied down here in a more generic fashion much like some of the other terms you mentioned. And given the region and producer I suspect you’re correct that the wine is in fact a dry Riesling.
To show how silly the whole thing was, we used to refer to Australian Riesling as Rhine Riesling, although the Rhine was 12,000 miles away. Sometimes Semillon was called Hunter Riesling just to confuse matters, not to mention Crouchen being called Clare Valley Riesling and a dry white blend was often called White Burgundy. At that stage there was precious little Chardonnay planted in Australia.
Thanks for this thread! It got got me looking in my old Frank Schoonmaker encyclopedia as well. At least into the 70’s the terms California Hock and New York Hock (even Ohio Hock!) were all legal terms. And in California the “Burgundy” and “Claret” often came from the same tank. Ah, the golden age.
Warning: Unsolicited Trivia to follow
In my readings of the Aubrey/Maturin (Master and Commander) series of books by Patrick O’Brian, many old wine & food terms pop up.
One thing I was unaware of was the use of the term “blackstrap” for Spanish red wine. I previously had only known of the phrase used in reference to rum.
Other Wines* mentioned in the 21-book series:
• Banyuls
• Canary (light/sweet sack of Canary Islands)
• Chambertin
• Chambolle-Musigny
• Château Lafite
• Chian Wine (Chios, a Greek Island)
• Claret (see above post)
• Constantia
• Diamant (med-sweet Spanish white)
• Fombrauges
• Frontignan (aka Frontignac)
• Haut-Brion
• Hermitage
• Latour
• Madeira
• Malmsey
• Margaux
• Marsala
• Pontet-Canet
• Priorato
• “resiny wine” (aka Retsina)
• Sillery (dry, still wine from Champagne)
• St-Julien
• Tavel
• “Tent” (aka vino tinto, from Spain)
• “Toddy” (palm wine)
• Tokay
from Lobscouse and Spotted Dog: Which It’s a Gastronomic Companion to the Aubrey/Maturin Novels by Anne C Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas
It is only now that it seems odd that “Hock” does not turn up in any of the books. I, for one, would like to try a Sillery one day.
That’s too funny Paul. Apparently the same thing used to happen down here. Here’s a comment from one of my mates made during the claret discussion.
There’s a story from mid-last century, where a company bottling claret ran out of labels, so switched to burgundy instead. The wine won top golds in both the claret and burgundy classes at a capital city wine show.
Apologies is this is stating the obvious, but Hock was derived from Hochheimer, the wines of the area around Hochheim am main. Another of those instances where the Great British linguistic skills required an anglicised version (Oporto → Port, Livorno → Leghorn, Firenze → Florence etc.).
It is only in relatively recent times, that trade agreements have tightened up the using (and perhaps abusing) of regional names to represent a broad style. Even now there are exceptions - I believe in the US there are still grandfathering agreements to allow American ‘Champagne’. Cheddar can come from anywhere, not just near Cheddar Gorge.
On occasions someone posts old time wine lists and you’ll see these generic terms in wide usage, often with no other information (e.g. no producer, area of production, grapes).
Australia seems to have classified reds as either Burgundy style or Claret style, but don’t assume the traditional European grapes. Penfolds St Henri Shiraz was a Claret for instance.
On the whites, in addition to Hock, I’m pretty sure there were Moselle wines, white burgundy and sauternes all produced in Australia. I should have another read of John Beeston’s concise history of Australian wine - a decent book if you want something different to the usual ‘buy these latest vintage wines’ or ’ read in awe of this prestigious estate’.
I remember friends in London convulsing when I referred to a Beaux Champs Street more or less as the French would, only to be informed that it was pronounced “Beecham.”
I’ve never been quite sure whether the British knack for manhandling foreign place names was born of (a) humor, (b) linguistic isolation or (c) passive aggression.
Leghorn is one of my favorite examples of this. Although, in fairness, the city was originally Liburna, and Leghorn is less of a stretch for Liburna.
The other places you cite aren’t such a blot on us English speakers. Firenze was originally Florentia under the Romans. It’s the later Italians who mangled that one. The Germans side with us, and history, calling it Florenz. But modern Italian does not permit an L after some consonants, so flower/flora is fiore, blonde is bionda and closed is chiuso. Hence Florentia naturally shifted to Fi…
We English speakers have good company in transmuting foreign place names. After all, the Italians call Paris Parigi and the Ottomans mangled Constantinople into Istanbul.
As for Oporto/Port, the O in Portuguese is the definite article, so the name means The Port.
Not a fan of Eskimo Joe then I take it? Seriously though, I’d love it if folks would keep trashing our local Hock. Anything to keep the stocks up and pricing down!
Watched the season finale of Taboo last night. Hock was used in the first five minutes.
And John, I’ll take the opportunity to hijack my own thread and ask what vintage of Woodlands “Margaret” you had that you enjoyed so much? I asked in the previous thread but didn’t get a response.
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