The world is awaiting the release of The Art and Design of Contemporary Wine Labels, an “illustrated survey [highlighting] leading designers who have elevated the design of wine labels to an art form”. Featured in the book are two Cloof labels, but the author bemoaned her lack of space, as she would have wanted to include several more of our labels.

We're flattered, gratified and all-round chuffed at being selected from tens of thousands of labels around the world. Even getting one label selected is exciting, but two!

There are no prizes for guessing that the label for the Bush Vines CPS was not one of those selected. This wine was released at a time when we were still in our corporate phase; Cellar Blend, our first unconventional label, was still in its early stages, and The Very Sexy Shiraz was barely even a neuron in Oscar's brain. Inkspot, The Dark Side, Daisy Darling and the other wines that were fighting for inclusion in the wine labels book were still years away from release.

So, along came CPS, attempting to slipstream the GMS (grenache-mourvedre-syrah) fashion with its cabernet-pinotage-shiraz melange that had been aged in barrel. We got amazing reviews for the wine, and were even told that it was too sophisticated for the price point it was aimed at in the UK!

Alas, even a rating of 90 from Simon Woods and a Wine of the Week selection by Tom Cannavan were not sufficient to entice wine buyers. Then, along came the more inspired Inkspot and The Dark Side, and CPS was shunted even further even into the shadows, awaiting a Cinderella (or is that cinde-red-la) moment that just never arrived.

CPS, we have to admit, is our Ugly Duckling. The Black Sheep of our family. Whenever we have a sales meeting, CPS is the elephant in the room, not – we hasten to add – because of deficiencies in the wine itself. No, CPS is like the kid whose mother dresses him funny. And, to make matters worse, he has an unusual name.

However, while we've been side-stepping the issue in sales meetings, the wine has patiently been ageing in bottle. The French expression for the maturation process – elevage – denotes that the wine has been 'raised'. It has grown up.

The 2004 CPS may only be six in human years, but in red wine years it's in the prime of its life. The gawky youth with brash tannins has matured into a suave adult who is the perfect dinner companion.

However, as fond as we are of CPS, we need the space in our warehouse (even single Italian men leave home eventually). So, with much reluctance, we've slashed the price to R25 per bottle. We know that a mature, barrel-aged red doesn't belong at the same price as a simple supermarket special, but we've reached the point where tough love is the only way. If we can't label it pretty perhaps the price will do the trick.

Click here to get your CPS for only R25 per bottle.