Just a quickie today, dear readers. Very nearly quadragenarian hard rock band AC/DC (releasers of songs titled "Rock'n Roll Damnation", "Highway to Hell" and "Hells Bells"; penners of such immortal lyrics as "I always fill the ballroom, the event is never small, the social papers say I've got the biggest balls of all") is now selling AC/DC branded wine. We hear the reds finish strong, but the whites are simply shocking...

LET'S SEE...WE'LL TRY... HOW ABOUT THE 2007 FOGHAT AC/DC aren't the first musicians to make their band name a brand name in wine - check out a few vintages from The Rolling Stones, KISS, Madonna, Barbara Streisand and Foghat(?!) here.

Not long ago we excoriated Cosmo for trying to stretch its brand to a male-oriented publication. So what do we have to say about AC/DC as a wine brand?

GOOD ON YA, MATES!

Pretend we said like that Paul Hogan, and hear us out. Of course someone looking for a nice wine is unlikely to choose the Highway to Hell Cab for their next dinner party. But aging AC/DC fans might. And in a licensing agreement like this one, there's no downside to the band. Even if the wine is swill, their fan base is rabid enough that it would have to be lethally poisonous to diminish their fervor. Actually, their fans might even prefer if it was moderately toxic.

Whether or not Warburn Estate has made a good decision producing AC/DC wines is another question. But given that the company exports about $15,000,000 of private label wine annually, we'd guess they have a pretty good system for designing and producing labels and packaging cheaply, deep relationships with distributors who can secure some decent shelf space and a set of protocols to make sure that failures are fast rather than expensive.

IT'S A BUSINESS DECISION

Loyal readers of this humble blog will recognize that we think of brand strategy as a set of business decisions. In the case of AC/DC wine, it's one that has potential upside and manageable downside. You Shook Me All Night Long Muscat, you say? What the hell - we'll drink to that!