By Daniel Herborn
Non-experts are often struck by the nonsense descriptions on wine bottles. “A subplot of mushrooms” reads the tasting notes for one wine. “Touched by asparagus” suggests another.
Other bottles are personified; there are bold Merlots, cheeky rosés and even a Chardonnay with a bee in its bonnet. The whole scene seems ripe for parody.
Sweeney Preston and Ethan CavanaghCredit: Simon Schluter
Enter Melbourne-based comics Sweeney Preston and Ethan Cavanagh.
Their Bondi Festival-bound show In Pour Taste: A Comedy Wine Tasting Experience pokes gentle fun at wine snobbery, cutting through the buzzwords and purple prose often associated with vino. Each instalment takes place in a wine bar and sees the pair team up with a local expert to guide the audience through a breezily informative and joke-filled tasting of five wines.
Joining such comic shows as the Chris Taylor-starring Plonk and Merrick Watts’ An Idiot’s Guide to Wine, Preston and Cavanagh are amused rather than cynical about wine wankery. “We love it because it’s more material for us,” Preston says.
Lest their own show take on any pretensions, however, the pair have introduced a “bulls--- bell” that they give to an audience member at each performance to ring every time either they or their wine expert gets a bit too high-falutin’.
“It reminds everyone that it is a comedy show,” Preston says. “The second an audience member steps out of line and says ‘Well, I actually bought a $2,000 bottle of grange’, it’s just an instant ‘ding’“.
Meeting some winemakers while researching and writing the show underlined the earthiness of the process for Preston and Cavanagh.
“The reality is that people that make wines are farmers, and those people are so down to earth,” Cavanagh says. “It all seems so much less snobby when you meet the people and visit the places rather than just reading off the back of the bottle.”
While the duo’s show gives anything grandiose a wide berth, it acknowledges that learning something about what we’re sipping can enrich the drinking experience.
‘There’s a lot of assumed knowledge, like why do we swirl [wine] in our glass before drinking? We’re not afraid to start from square one.’
Comedian Sweeney Preston
“People always talk about cool climate and warm climate wines, but no one ever tells you how that affects a wine,” Preston says. “There’s a lot of assumed knowledge with wine, like why do we swirl it in our glass before drinking? We’re not afraid to start from square one with these things, which a lot of people appreciate.
“We want [the show] to be a safe environment where you can learn while having a great time and laughing, enjoying good wine and the social aspect of it.”
Cavanagh says having the shows in wine bars helps add to the high-spirited, communal feel. “It would be very rare midway through a set at a comedy club that someone sticks their hand up and says ‘Can I ask the expert a question?’ But that happens every couple of shows, and it’s great; it feels almost like you’re having a wine tasting in someone’s lounge room.”
Having initially teamed up when they both entered the stand-up circuit as high-schoolers, the pair have now successfully taken their wine show to festivals across Australia and New Zealand. After their run at Bondi Festival, they’re heading to Edinburgh Fringe and England’s Latitude Festival. At the latter event, they’re amused to find themselves sharing a bill with Duran Duran and Rick Astley.
While the wines may change, their mission with these international shows will remain the same: to create what Preston calls “one big, happy, wine-tasting family.” “The five wines do help with that,” he says.
In Pour Taste: A Comedy Wine Tasting Experience is at Native Drops during Bondi Festival from July 11 to 14.