Wine Song: how many songs about wine do you know?

Stories about wine and music

Whilst spending hours disgorging or labelling bottles we listen to music playlists to help things along. The playlists are certainly eclectic ranging from the movie soundtracks of Ennio Morricone to Pop Princess Kylie and the driving beats of Royal Blood and The Clash.

Unfortunately for Nico, the winemaker, we have yet to include any Italian pop music from his youth. Another glaring omission is the lack of songs about wine so I thought I’d see what songs we could include.

The most obvious wine song has to be UB40’s Red Red Wine (1983) which isn’t exactly my favourite tune but would probably be the one that most people will think of first, together with Champagne Supernova by Oasis (1996) or Strawberry Wine written by Matraca Berg and Gary Harrison, and recorded by American country music artist Deana Carter in the same 1996.

The earliest song that I can think of is What’s The Point in Getting Sober (1942) which was an interesting jocular number 1 by Louis Jordan and re-recorded by Joe Jackson in 1983 on his Jumpin’ Jive album.

If I had to choose a favourite it would be Lilac Wine by Jeff Buckley (1994); ‘I made wine from the lilac tree, put my heart and soul into its recipe’ are certainly lyrics we can relate to at Stanlake! It has since been covered by the underrated Miley Cyrus which I’m reliably informed is pronounced ‘Milly Cheeros’ in Italian, you learn things every day at Stanlake Park!

A favourite singer on our playlists is the sultry Lana Del Rey, she does an excellent cover of the Nancy Sinatra hit called Summer Wine (2013). However, the musical genre that really loves wine is Country Music, especially when there is a broken heart included in the story as in the Merle Haggard wine song listed below. Other the already mentioned Strawberry Wine, there are so many songs about wine in this genre that it’s easier to write a list of the better known tracks :

• Willie Nelson (1971): Yesterday’s Wine
• LeAnn Rimes (2007): A Good Friend and a Glass of Wine
• Loretta Lynn (1964): Wine, Women and Song
• Johnny Cash (1972): Melva’s Wine
• Merle Haggard (1979): Heaven Was a Drink of Wine

There has been a long association with music and wine and like most things in life our preferences are down to personal taste. Even with our Stanlake Park music playlists sometimes it’s often said ‘more wine and less whine’.