A wine range developed by Lisa McGuigan, daughter of former McGuigan’s boss Brian McGuigan, has been brought to the UK.
Eight varieties of the range are initially being offered across three tiers by distributor Copestick Murray. The cheapest, Wilde Thing (rsp: £6), has two variants: Cabernet/Shiraz and Chardonnay/Pinot Grigio. The latter uses Chardonnay fermented using the wild yeast found on the outside of the grapes – part of the inspiration for the name.
There are also two wines from the Silver Collection (rsp: £7.99) – Chardonnay and Shiraz – and four from the top-end Platinum Collection: Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Shiraz (rsp: £20). Wilde Thing and the Silver Collection are both available now in Bargain Booze and Nisa.
Lisa formerly worked for McGuigan’s, launching the Tempus Two label in 1997, but left ten years later. “In large, publicly listed wine companies, things change – the direction Tempus Two was going in was not the direction I wanted to go in,” she said. “I don’t use a lot of oak in my wines, whereas the family love oak.”
She founded the Lisa McGuigan brand in 2011, which gave her the freedom to experiment with ideas such as wild fermentation – a process she described as having unreliable results that would not be acceptable to shareholders. The range also features distinctive labels made out of metal foil.
Aside from the production method, Wilde Thing’s name was a nod to one of Lisa’s favourite quotes. “Being a female in the wine industry, my male competitors can be a bit of a nightmare,” she said. “When I have a bad day, I think about a quote Oscar Wilde was famous for: ‘There’s only one thing worse than being talked about and that’s not being talked about.’”
She said Wilde Thing was intended to be the first part of a range inspired by literary figures – with the next likely to be named after Virginia Woolfe.
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