Are you being serious? Ruling on offensive King William wine label ‘outrageous’

The News Letter writer and unionist commentator said: "The more I think of this panel's adjudication on a complaint about the 1690 fortified wine, the more outrageous the findings seem.

"Why should the panel be empowered to deem important figures from British history sectarian and offensive? What if it was a king who fought Scots? Is that offensive too? Edward I or whoever.

"Imagine the wine was called after the Irish revolutionary Patrick Pearse, who led the 1916 Easter Rising, and it used a green label and contained 19.16% alcohol. I cannot for one minute imagine the panel sustaining a complaint that it was sectarian and offensive, even though many unionists would find it so. If they did sustain such a complaint, it is certain that there would uproar among Irish republicans, indeed across nationalist Ireland.

He added: "This is opening up a Pandora's box. For example, there is a Jacobite Ale, which was brewed to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Jacobite rebellion. The Jacobites fought the Williamites. Why is one deemed offensive, the other not?

"Surely the customer has the right, if they are offended, not to buy the product.

"This could look like it is a ruling that has its origins in usual middle class angsty and ignorance about British history and anything that is deemed to be tainted with unionism."

The fortified wine was launched in the west of Scotland by Jersey-based company Belcondie last year, with the drink broadly viewed as a direct rival to Buckfast.

But following a complaint from a member of the public, an independent panel on the Portman Group, which regulates alcohol packaging and promotion in the UK, found the label was likely to be “divisive and inflammatory” in some communities.

The combination of the bottle’s label, which features the colour orange with William III on horseback and the “unusual presentation” of the ABV as 16.90 per cent, was of particular concern to the panel members, reported The Scotsman.

While the producer of the fortified wine claimed the 16.90 reference was a reference to the 1690 Distilling Act, the panel said it would be “far more likely" to be understood as a reference to the Battle of the Boyne, when William III claimed victory over James II and VII, the last Catholic king of England, Scotland and Ireland.

A statement from the panel said: “While King William of Orange, in and of himself as a monarch, did not cause serious offence, the combination of elements on the label were likely to be divisive and inflammatory, fuelling division in certain communities where religiously aggravated crime was prevalent.

"The panel therefore concluded that the presentation of the packaging, particularly the overt references where the product’s ABV had been used to signify a year that linked the product, and King William, to a specific conflict associated with sectarianism, was likely to cause serious offence to certain communities.”

Belcondie, based in St Helier, has since worked with the panel on the label, which it has agreed to change.