“Crazy” Central Coast winemaker Stillman Brown won the annual Syrah Shootout at the Hospice du Rhône in Paso Robles earlier this year with a wine called La Mort du Roi. So far, so what?
I ain't nothin' but a hound dog, whining all the time..
Well, take a look at Exhibit A (right). The bottle carries a wine label of the absurdist painting titled “Elvis Died For Your Sins”, featuring The King in a (prescription) drug-strewn Graceland bathroom. The painting is the personal property of the winemaker, who commissioned it after a religious experience during a visit to Graceland.
Brown says “If [Elvis] drank wine instead of popping pills, he’d still be alive, and playing Vegas this week.”
45 Syrahs from around the world were submitted to and selected by the world’s largest Rhone varietal event, and judged by over seventy winemakers. They overwhelmingly voted for La Mort Du Roi in a blind tasting held at the famed Villa Creek restaurant in downtown Paso Robles.
The 1997 painting by Robert Cochran is the personal property of Mr Brown, who commissioned it after a religious experience during a visit to Graceland.
Brown, an “eccentric” winemaker also comes up with stuff like this -
“A materialistic culture, in which individuals strive to become powerful, wealthy and charismatic (or just worship those who are) should, indeed must have as its saint, its holy martyr, its sacrificial lamb and golden calf rolled into one and served hot, none other than Elvis Presley. This is a dogma fit for a King.”
