Should you visit Rutherglen’s Big Wine Bottle? Wine not! This 36-metre-tall flagon is a real corker, so it stands to riesling that you should make a chardo-day of it and head to Victoria’s premier wine-growing region.
The Big Bottle looms large over Rutherglen, and can be seen from most of the town’s leafy streets and verdant parks. It casts an imposing figure, with its mixture of brutalist red brick architecture and quirky, weathered top. It’s unique and odd, certainly, but also feels like an organic part of this beautiful village.
The fascinating tale of this vast vial dates back to the early 1900s. Starting life as a water tower for the growing township, the structure could be seen for miles around and quickly became a symbol of pride in Rutherglen. It was taken out of service in the swingin’ ’60s – but you decant keep a good Big Thing down!
Late one boozy night during the 1967 Rutherglen Wine Festival, some bright spark suggested converting the water tower into an enormous jar of plonk. The town’s drunkards agreed it was a fantastic idea, and began scribbling ideas for it on the back of coasters.
It was a big cask, but the locals rosé to the occasion. Hundreds of Rutherglenwegians constructed the sturdy mesh top of the bottle, then came to grapes with the difficult installation. Ah well, no champagne, no gain!
Goon enough, the region’s newest tourist attraction was ready to go. The Bottle was lovingly restored in 2014 – perhaps in reaction to the Pokolbin Bottle’s growing celebrity – and has certainly aged like a fine wine. I know I can be less than enthusiastic about Big Things that started out as unremarkable buildings, such as the Big Miner’s Lamp, but the unabashed enthusiasm the people of Rutherglen show for the Bottle make it a real glass act!
Big, big wine, stay close to me
Don’t let me be alone
It’s tearing apart my blue heart
I was hoping for vine weather during my date with the Big Bottle, but it ended up being wetter than dipsomniac’s lunch. That wasn’t going to stop me, so I procured an ornate vessel of alcohol-free De Bortoli Melba Amphora Cabernet Sauvignon for a picnic beneath the colossal carafe.
As the Cab Sav’s dreamlike, serotinal aromas washed over me like a comforting, yet scintillating couverture, and my mouth was filled with sophisticated, nostalgic, compassionate, epicurean flavours (oh, is that a hint of nutmeg?), I was sequestered away upon the cloying breeze to a simpler and more delicate time.
The voluptuous mixture of perfectly-manicured wine and an astonishingly proportioned Big Thing proved utterly intoxicating. Swaying giddily from my encounter, I found myself in no state to drive, and was forced to sleep in my car like a common drunk.
I awoke several times during that cold, windswept evening, my skin glistening with sweat and my eyes frantically searching for the Bottle. My attempts to resist it were futile, and I would rise, trembling, and stagger on withered legs through the gloom towards my fate.
As I embraced the Bottle, tears running down my cheeks before being washed into the gutter by the beating deluge, I told myself that I could stop cuddling him any time I wished. Deep down, within my shuddering heart, I knew it to be a falsehood. The seams of life’s rich tapestry were becoming frayed, and I was utterly addicted.
My name is Bigs Bardot and I’m a Big Bottle-oholic… and loving every minute of it!
