Want wine with your country ‘estate’? The word alone doesn’t guarantee it
Idea
The railway track runs from Tallarook to Yea or further if you’re game. But a 40 kilometer pedal was enough for us. We even stopped halfway for a caffeine break at Trawool Estate. Maybe the names ring a bell: Yes, Trawool. In January, both towns stood on the fringes of fires in Victoria, prompting me to ask the barista: “Has the smoke affected your grapes in the last month?”
“Which grapes?” came the answer. I looked around and didn’t see a vine. Call me biased, but when I see “property” in a rural setting, I think of barrels and cellar doors. In short, grapes. Without a doubt, wine is an integral part of the definition of property.
But dictionaries favor the barista. Macquarie’s phrase is “a landed estate”. Highlighting property, The Collins defines property as “a large area of land in the country owned by an individual, family or organisation.” State, like status, is a fraternal duo; All three terms cover possessions and your station in life and the world.
No grapes then. Neither legally nor semantically, it is the fruit of a cultural union, just as most Europeans think of swans as white by decree. The site becomes even more complex and much less idyllic when combined with municipal or industrial, real or residential. Does it make me wonder how far we can expand the word without losing its own characteristics?
Intrigued, I asked its editor, David Blair. place names The newspaper commented: “Trawool Estate is what I call an example of ‘poncification’, a subgenre of linguistic high-end marketing by real estate agents.” For the record, the coffee was delicious and the panorama was serene, but it was a matter of meaning.
David added: “I think there are only two respectable uses for property in Australia. One is ‘a property with a large amount of land and a large house on it’ (and this is a marginal use in Oz). The second would be ‘a property where grapes are grown; a winery’.”
It turns out that this bonding reflex is a common, if not strictly justified, response. The images of branches and labels produced by brochures, cinematic advertisements with Van Morrison soundtracks, fuel the reckless assumption when, in fact, a property could be the land itself.
No need to fear, Grange is a similar shapeshifter. Years of shrewd marketing from the folks at Penfolds have trained us to design hanging rows of bunches of shiraz, tables as long as luncheons, when no fruit needs to be included. Although derived from the Latin granum or grain, grange is a square of God’s green earth, optionally free to become the yeoman’s hut. Just as farming can be a city dweller’s escape without tractors, cows and crops.
This, like Trawool espresso, is a shock to the system; is a wake-up call warning us about how much we color words with our own beliefs. If I say pet, you think of your family dog or cat, although I might mean a turtle. Or a rock. In rhetoric and law the burden is on defining key terms; This is a test to see if we are discussing the one thing that is certain. Following wrong hunches can cause the grapes to go sour. Even worse, you may lose your property.
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David Astle is the crossword compiler and Wordplay columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He is a broadcaster at ABC Radio Melbourne.
