What's in a name?

Today I received an interesting comment on my newly-arrived Tuscan wines from Tommaso Farina, whose excellent blog "Un diario di gusto e piacere" ("A diary of taste and pleasure," which counts as philosophy with me) covers a wide range of food and wine topics.  He wrote that, although a Gambero Rosso guide of the recent past (2004? 2005?) liked the Vito Arturo of Le Fonti very much,  they sort of wrote it off because the name didn't please them.  (Or words, which I have translated from Italian, to that effect.)  As Tommaso wrote,

Volevo solo dire che una peraltro ottima guida vinicola italiana, quella del
Gambero Rosso, anni fa aveva espresso appunti sul nome del Vito Arturo. Mi
chiedo cos'abbia di così brutto quel nome, specie al confronto di autentiche
stramberie escogitate negli ultimi anni dai produttori di vino.

I translate:

I only wanted to say that an otherwise excellent wine guide, the Gambero Rosso, years ago made a point of noting [pejoratively] the Vito Arturo name.  I ask what they could have against such a name when wine producers have been dreaming up all sorts of whacky names over the past few years.

So the review came down to, "Loved the wine, hated the name."  Which doubtless cost the gang at Le Fonti a GR bottle or two. 

That's molto weird in this age of bizarre wine names and labels, as Tommaso mentioned. 

For the record, Vito Arturo is the name of the father of Mr. Imberti, the estate's owner.  So much for filial piety, I guess.

Comments

[Richard]

Well, I like the name and I LOVE the wine. Can't wait...

[Terry Hughes]

I agree completely.

Let's drink up!

[Fredric Koeppel]

That's nuts. Vito Attuor is a dignified name. Wonder how they would feel about all the australian critter label names? I mean.,.. REALLY!

[Terry Hughes]

Maybe they're too used to all those -aia names. Sassicaia. Ornellaia. Caccaia.