Do you remember Mateus Rosé?
In 1994 Rosé had a poor reputation, primarily due to the overwhelming popularity of cheap, overly sweet, light pink wines available at the time.
For this reason, Rosé was not really a wine we wanted to add to our portfolio in 1994. However, not wanting to waste fermenting grape juice that was bubbling out of three fermentation tanks, Chris pumped a little of each into the only remaining empty tank he had. The combination was Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Merlot. This combination was left fermenting on skins overnight to get a pink blush into the wine, before Chris removed the skins by pressing the fermenting wine away from the skins.
The resulting wine was very well received and from that day to this we have made a Rosé every vintage.
But have you ever wondered why we actually call it Ensemble Rosé?
Because of the combination of the grape varieties we used in 1994, we thought of names that had an image of a group of something.
Musical names came to mind, words like ‘Concerto’ and ‘Symphony’ but they had already been trademarked within the wine sector.
However, ‘Ensemble’ was not trademarked, so we decided that would be the name for our Rosé with the meaning of a small group of musicians being linked to a small combination of grapes. We also made a decision when we made that first wine, that we were not going to use the word Rosé at all, we decided to just called it ‘Ensemble’.
Then came the need to represent this idea on the label.
You know, people often say that the best ideas come in the shower. I was actually having a shower while listening to the radio and Andrew Lloyd Weber’s song, ‘Think of Me’ was being played. I had one of those ‘ah ha’ moments. I didn’t actually want a label representing me having a shower, but thought it would be nice if people did ‘think of me, think of me fondly, when we say goodbye’…the beautiful words of Andrew Lloyd Weber’s song.
Wrapped in my towel, I quickly hopped out of the shower and went to my children’s piano book where the simple music score of ‘Think of Me’ was part of their piano practice. I then copied the first 2 bars of this musical score and made some tiny changes, put the name ENSEMBLE over the top of the music and ‘ta da’ the label was designed.
The label attracted attention and of course the wine had to be tasted. Our visitors to our cellar door loved it, but whether they bought the Ensemble wine or not, I wanted people to leave our winery with fond memories of their visit.
Then in 2000 with the new millennium driving new ideas and more modern labels, we set about working with a firm of graphic artists to make this change.
By this stage, the word Rosé was no longer a dirty word and so the decision was made to call the wine, ‘Ensemble Rosé.’
Our Graphic Artist, Frank Aloi, who is still creating labels for us to this day, came up with the idea of the artistic representation of the individual grapes that were going into the wine at this time. They were Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Merlot, Cabernet Sanzey and Pinot Noir.
From that day to this, that same and subtle label has been used for our much-loved Ensemble Rosé. I love it and I have no desire to change it.
I hope you love it too but more importantly, I hope you love the wine. There has been a global Rosé Revolution and this wine style has many and varied nuances. Our winemaking daughter, Jen has created her own style, still incorporating a selection of grape varieties, allowed to ferment on skins for a short time to obtain the blush of colour which is very desirable.
Enjoy the Pfeiffer Ensemble Rosé which was the very first of our labels that ‘pop.’
Recollections by Robyn Pfeiffer
Label Progression of our Pfeiffer Ensemble
