IN a country where ages-old European wine names have been turned into cab savs, sav blancs and charders, it's perhaps not surprising that a new wine variety's fortunes can depend on how easy, or otherwise, it is to pronounce.

That's just one of the hoops a new type of vino has to jump through to make it on to the consumer stage, according to author and wine writer Max Allen, who is compiling a history of Mildura's Aus