The Australian wine company Hardys is looking for the Jamie Oliver of wine, while getting a nice bit of tv exposure for its brands Nottage Hill, Stamp of Australa, Crest, VR and Voyage. Brazenly jumping on the bandwagon of successful British tv series such as Pop Idol, it has launched Wine Idol in conjunction with the tv channel UK Food to find "the next tv wine celebrity".
Entrants have to be 25-35 and must be "a popular figure to demystify wine and be the new face for the brand". Potential competitors should visit www.hardys.com.au or call +44 (0)20 8544 6917 by 30 sep 04. If initially succesful, they will be invited to submit a video. Ten finallists will be chosen and the contest between them (doing what exactly, I wonder?) is to be screened in jan 05.
It's a great idea for stirring up some youthful enthusiasm for the entire wine category, but I am always wary of attempts to find a copy of someone else. I know several production companies and the BBC (who are expected to launch a new food and drink format soon) have been desperate to find a grapey counterpart to Jamie Oliver, the internationally popular Naked Chef, but it's no good trying to make one person into another.
I remember when we were drawing up plans for filming Jancis Robinson's Wine Course, my 10-part BBC series almost 10 years ago, one of the directors was terribly keen that I should wear floaty dresses and wide-brimmed hats. It took me some time to realise that he was trying to make me into Lucinda Lambton, who then had her own distinctive and popular style of presenting tv programmes on strange buildings. Hopeless.
And talking of female tv presenters, health freak Carol Vorderman was chosen to launch this new competition, looking extremely extremely uneasy brandishing a large glass of red wine. Has she not made a great deal of money already promoting the values of a detox diet with zero alcohol intake?