A truly symbolic decision

California wine giant is looking to get its product into the emoji game

When it comes to wine, red shines brightest.

White expressions seem destined to forever live in its shadow.

The late British wine merchant Harry Waugh is often quoted as having said the first duty of wine is to be red. So kindly take a seat, Chardonnay, Riesling and the like. Another British authority, Jancis Robinson, condemns the use of different glass shapes and sizes based on wine colour. There’s no logic behind serving white wine in a smaller glass than red, she explains. She believes big bowls enhance the attributes of white wines as much as darker coloured ones. Yet those fishbowls on a stem continue to hold pride of place for Cabernets, Pinots and Syrahs, while most white wine vessels are puny by comparison.

A new promotion by California wine giant Kendall-Jackson, however, is looking to balance the disparity between red and white wine in a more symbolic way.

They’ve launched #WhiteWineEmoji, a social media campaign to get a white wine glass created by the Unicode Consortium (the body that governs and sets global coding standards).

“What’s missing isn’t the world’s passion for white wine,” suggests the mission statement on whitewineemoji.net.

“It’s simply the world’s symbol for white wine.” Is an emoji worth a thousand words? Possibly not, but white wine’s absence from the world’s visual vocabulary is a glaring omission.

The latest additions to the emoji lexicon came in 2016, when a whisky tumbler and clinching sparkling wine flutes were launched. Kendall-Jackson is hoping to raise consumer support for its initiative through use of the hashtag.

There are plans to make a formal proposal to the Unicode Technical Committee next spring.

As it stands, Canadians’ taste for wine favours red wine styles, ringing up a reported 54.5 per cent of total wine sales in the country in 2015-16. White wine sales combined for 32 per cent and sparkling wine represented 5.2 per cent.

Would a new white wine glass emoji stimulate more sales? It definitely wouldn’t hurt matters.

Christopher Waters is the co-founder and editor of Vines, a national consumer wine magazine.