Lingerie Lovelies Lure Drinkers to Austrian Wine – Wine

A publisher in Austria has been quietly promoting Austrian wine for the last decade in a way that is as old as time itself: with pictures of sexy ladies in their lingerie.

The Jungwinzerinnen (Young Female Winemakers) calendar shows off the, erm, softer side of Austrian winemaking. Twelve women from Burgenland, Neiderosterreich, Styria and Vienna have bared nearly all in order to attract attention for the national wine industry. 

The calendar is the brainchild of Ellen Ledermüller-Reiner, a (presumably feminist) publisher based in Burgenland. The 2015 edition will be the 12th, and for a mere $32 (25 euros), your office or kitchen can look like the bedroom of a 14-year-old boy.

But! It’s wine, so no fear: it’s classy. Ledermüller-Reiner told Decanter in 2011: “It should attract attention and be sexy, but not be cheap or overly erotic.” OK, yep, you sure ticked all those boxes.

Twelve months and 12 women means that the calendar captures a year in the life of the scantily clad winemaker in some detail. Pruning, harvesting, cleaning tanks, lying awkwardly on some stairs clutching a carafe of Grüner Veltliner: it has all been laid bare for the public to see.

The aim of the calendar is to promote Austrian wine, which has been largely devoid of sexiness following the anti-freeze scandal of the 1980s. That’s not to say it isn’t good: Grüner Veltliner and Riesling from above the Danube has held critics’ attention for some time, and vibrant, red Blaufrankisch wines are well on their way to becoming favorites of hipster sommeliers. One can’t help but think that this calendar flies in the face of that image.

There is obviously a lot of demand for the calendar (sarcasm aside, it is, in essence, 12 pictures of nubile women in their underwear). I assume the calendar’s male counterpart is on its way: surely 12 months’ worth of dirt-smeared, topless men would sell a copy or two?

Or, y’know, we could just drink Austrian wine and be adults about it.

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Paging Dr. Freud: Rep. Steve Southerland opens mouth, inserts "lingerie shower."

@MarcACaputo

Well, at least Steve Southerland isn’t talking about “legitimate rape.”

But for a GOP Congressman stuck in a close race against a female Democrat, someone oughtta tell Southerland to be careful with the gender talk. Southerland was already on the defensive about a cigar-smoking boys-only “roundtable” he held. Then he hosted a women-for-Southerland-style event where his campaign misspelled U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis’ last name.

On Friday, the Panama City congressman opened his mouth and wondered why the press isn’t asking Democrat Gwen Graham about whether she ever attended a ladies-only “lingerie shower.”

Huh? What’s a “lingerie shower?” Most people know what baby showers are. And a few are probably familiar with lingerie shows. To combine the two is kinda creepy. Paging Dr. Freud… UPDATE: Turns out, I don’t lead an interesting life. Sharp-eyed reader Sally West points out that “lingerie showers” are for brides to be. And that makes Southerland’s comment even less helpful to his cause. And so still we can say: Paging Dr. Freud….

Southerland quickly realized the gaffe and issued this statement: ”I regret that my comments are being misused for political gain. I was trying to make the point that some organizations host men-only events and some host women-only events. Gwen Graham should be more focused on explaining her background as a D.C. lobbyist and political insider than she is on mischaracterizing my remarks.”

Indeed, this isn’t the messaging Republicans want — espcially because it happened during an event with Gov. Rick Scott and NJ Gov. Chris Christie. But some tried to find a bit of humor in it.

“Lingerie showers, whiskey/cigar nights, funeral director by day…I’m thinking his own reality tv show,” GOP operative Mike Hanna said on Twitter

Meantime, we know what Democrats’ll do with the phrase: re-up the war on women talk. A while back, I said on Twitter that Southerland would probably win this race by about 4 or more points. Perhaps not if this keeps up.

“Steve Southerland’s latest jaw-dropping gambit to appeal to women: demean and ridicule us by claiming a ‘lingerie party defense,’” the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said in the statement. 

So file the following dispatch from Steve Bousquet, Tampa Bay Times bureau chief in its joint state capital bureau with the Miami Herald, under the heading “self inflicted wounds.” Bottom line: It’s just never good campaign practice to bolster an opponent’s stereotype. 

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