Passion pop... Kevin Rudd's taste in wine is distinctively uninspiring and bland.
Winestein uncorked
When the Senate last month laid bare our Prime Minister's wine cupboard, we got a rare glimpse into Kevin Rudd the man, not the puppet.
The $14,000 collection, which we taxpayers fund, is housed at the PM's official residences - The Lodge in Canberra and Kirribilli House in Sydney - and is scattered with some spectacular drops.
But by and large, the roughly 600-bottle cellar reflects his rather dull, try-hard approach that is becoming more prevalent by the day.
See Rudd's wine cellar list here.
To be fair to Rudd, the old stuff in the cellar heralds from the Howard years - sauvignon blancs and viogniers from the mid-2000s that would be well past their best now. Plus a 1985 Dom Perignon, purchased for just $99.95 thank you very much.
But there is a distinct lack of inspiration in recent acquisitions, with smaller, family-run wineries and boutique producers nowhere to be seen, while all but one of (Japanese-owned) Lion Nathan's wine brands make the list. Hmmmmm.
It's also blatantly clear that Rudd is a white man, not a red. If only I knew that little fact before the last election.
There's no shortage of West Australian flavour in the cellar, with the PM particularly keen on Sandalford and Houghton's Pemberton Sauvignon Blanc 2006 (33 bottles at $18.35 each).
But other large quantities of wine are similarly uninspiring for a PM's personal stash: 46 x Blue Pyrenees NV Brut ($22.75), 43 x Alto Pinot Grigio 2008 ($20.91), 36 x Mr Riggs Shiraz ($18) and 42 x Kangarilla Road 2006 Fleurieu ($17.27).
Two bottles of St Hallet Old Block Shiraz 2003 ($52.03), eight bottles of Petaluma Merlot 04 ($47.42), plus a couple of big Henschkes from the early 2000s are the only real decent reds with age that would be ripe drinking right now.
Perhaps the PM is saving them for Kerry Stokes.
And if John Howard ever pops in for a Wallabies game and some cheese and crackers, Rudd could open one of the seven Edwards and Chaffey 99 Shiraz bottles ($27.23) that Little Johnny kindly left behind. They'd be close to off by now.
(I do take pleasure in knowing I purchased six bottles of the exact wine from a Perth bottleshop about 2001 for $23, cheaper than our PM paid.)
Perhaps most worrying about the list is the 11 Centenary Federation 1999 red magnums ($86.36), a wine blended from premium grapes from Australia's then 61 wine regions, with 150 bottles intended as gifts for heads of state throughout the world and at Commonwealth celebrations in 2001.
Clearly we left some important people off the list, and who knows how and when that might come back to bite us.
At least Kevin will have a good excuse. That's if he's not punch drunk on one of his six bottles of 2008 NZ sauvignon blanc ($13.31).
As Little Johnny would say, that's a bit un-Australian.
What do you think of the PM's wine cellar? Comment below or email here.
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