The Biz: Animal magnetism

Animal labels mean success. That appears to be the first rule of wine exporting these days, at least out of Australia.

Beverage news website Sommnet.com reports Australian wine companies are clambering to join what it calls "the Noah's Ark party".

Casella Wines started the trend, with its Yellowtail kangaroo label, which has had phenomenal success. In two years the Yellowtail brand grabbed 35 per cent of the Australian wine market in the US.

McGuigan Simeon has followed suit with its Crocodile Rock label, admitting it was targeting Yellowtail's success, says Sommnet.

Not wanting to be left behind, Southcorp has come out with a Little Penguin brand and Gallo has waded in with a Smoking Loon label.

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The Biz has enjoyed reading ABN Amro Craigs' informative "Wealthy New Zealanders Series" of advertisements, not just because their appearance in the Business Herald helps pay our meagre wages.

But we had to giggle at the glowing portrayal in Saturday's offering of 19th-century businessman William Larnach, whose legacy is Dunedin landmark Larnach's Castle.

Larnach was a politician but "looked upon business as his true calling, participating in many commercial ventures in Dunedin where there is ample evidence of his popularity", according to the newspaper ad.

The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography uses a remarkably similar turn of phase in its description of Larnach, but comes to a completely different conclusion.

"There is ample evidence of his popularity but an influential segment of Dunedin society regarded him with suspicion, even hostility.

"The need to maintain at any cost a show of material success, and to hide any trace of weakness or self-doubt, was a ruling instinct which extracted a heavy toll on his personal happiness," it says.

Larnach committed suicide by shooting himself at Parliament Buildings in 1898.

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Pat yourself on the back: Tax Freedom Day has arrived.

The Business Roundtable tell us last Thursday was the day when average New Zealanders stopped working for the Government and started working for themselves.

Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr said the April 22 milestone was based on a calculation of central government core expenditure, which amounts to 31 per cent of gross domestic product.

Libertarians may wish to celebrate - but not too loudly. The tax burden is slightly reduced from last year when Tax Freedom Day arrived one day later.

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Tenon chief executive John Dell's presentation to the Institute of Forestry conference last week had to be hastily updated after it was sent out.

It was prepared before the company's controversial profit upgrade early this month so had the old forecasts in it. An updated one had to be filed to the exchange.

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Toymaker Mattel's Barbie is entitled to copyright protection for her wide eyes, pert nose and bow-shaped lips, a US appeals court has ruled.

Mattel sued Radio City Entertainment, which runs Radio City Music Hall in New York, over "Rockettes 2000" dolls named for the Rockettes chorus line.

Mattel claimed the central facial features copied "Neptune's Daughter Barbie," from 1992 and "CEO Barbie" from 1999.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court ruling that the noses, lips and eyes of the dolls are so common they cannot be protected by copyrights.

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