(Wine Searcher) - Is slapping breasts on wine labels now more "sex and the silly" than seductive?

Back in 2009, Air France Flight 447 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 228 people on board. Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French weekly, ran with a front cover only days after the disaster that showed an airliner about to hit the sea with the headline: "228 disappeared... that's 228 less abstentions at the European Elections."

Understandably a lot of people were outraged. Charlie Hebdo can never be described as shy of controversy, and back in 2009 even this was a bit beyond the pale. But free speech is sacrosanct. Thousands of people marched to say "Je Suis Charlie" after the newspaper's offices were attacked – and many of their staff killed – in a terrorist attack in 2015. Irrespective of your feelings towards their covers or their humour, we are all free to cause offence.

Which must be why so many people are apt to make and share bad-taste wine labels on social media – even with the accompanying remark, po-faced, that the label might be a bit "questionable" or "poor taste" or "awful". By-and-large (I've yet to be exposed to less genderized controversy), the label in question will feature a woman's breasts. For some reason this is generally (a) a natural wine thing and (b) the breasts are the size a 16-year-old boy would wish them to be.