Last month, Australiaâs post office announced it would include a prompt for Indigenous place names on address forms. Brought on by a Gomerai womanâs petitions, this is the latest development in a movement to acknowledge and honor the traditional, precolonial names of destinations throughout Australia.
The wine industry is evolving in tandem. The back label of wines from The Other Rightâs 2020 vintage, made from vineyards around South Australia, reads, âThe vineyards and our winery are located on Peramangk and Kaurna lands. We acknowledge and pay our respects to the First Nations People, the traditional custodians of these lands, their histories and culture.â
Jauma and Commune of Buttons, two wineries in the Adelaide Hills region, made a similar change to their 2020 bottlings. Their labels now say âPeramangk Countryâ instead of âBasket Rangeâ or âForest Range.â
While some worry about tokenism, others believe these are enormously important changes. They represent not just semantic shifts, but also an effort for Australians to reckon with collective pastsâand futures.

When Alex Schulkin and Galit Shachaf of The Other Right arrived in Australia 12 years ago, they âhad literally no idea about anything in terms of the original custodians of the land,â says Schulkin.
The couple had not heard about the Stolen Generation of Indigenous children who were forcibly removed from their parents; they were unaware of the landmark case âMabo v Queensland,â which recognized Indigenous people as the rightful owners of Australia and asserted they could reclaim land through proven continuous presence; they didnât realize that it took until 2008 for the government to issue a formal apology for its âpast mistreatmentâ of âthe Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuous cultures in human history.â
Over time, their awareness grew.
âWe started thinking maybe thereâs something we could do as well,â says Schulkin. âItâs tricky; a few years ago, we realized no matter what you do it will not be enough.â
But he and Shachaf reasoned that didnât mean do nothing. After consulting with a family friend of Indigenous heritage, they decided to add an acknowledgment to their labels. They knew it could be perceived as tokenism.
âItâs tricky; a few years ago, we realized no matter what you do it will not be enough.â âAlex Schulkin, The Other Right
âSometimes you see a signature [with an acknowledgement] in an email,â says Schulkin, âand itâs a corporation that mines Aboriginal lands, and thatâs a token.â
For The Other Right, the priority was that they add an acknowledgment with a genuine spirit.
âWe consulted a few people, put some of our thoughts together and tried to phrase it best we could,â he says. Their family friend warned that âcertain [phrases] should not be usedâsuch as âAborigines,â which is a colonial word,â although Aboriginal is acceptable.
There is also an important difference to Indigenous Australians âbetween âlandâ and âCountry.ââ The latter refers to ânot just the land but also the culture and the history; whereas land is land, soil,â says Schulkin. Since the Adelaide Hills, where The Other Right is based, encompasses an area that was home to the Kaurna (pronounced Garna) and Peramangk cultures, both are named on their labels.
On Travis Tausendâs debut vintage in 2015, the labels read âKaurna Country,â omitting the Clare Valley designation.
âI originally did it because Iâve always wanted to communicate place and history in multiple different ways,â says Tausend.
Now, he writes both âPeramangk Landâ and âHope Forest,â to âcommunicate land and culture,â he says.
âThereâs the Indigenous, or First Nations, thereâs the multiple thousand years of history there; then thereâs my history, my winemaking history. Iâm not putting any importance on either,â he says. âThe history of a place is wrapped up in the English or Australian equivalent of terroirâculture, land, my culture and the culture I come into contact with.â
In addition to sparking dialogue, Tausand hopes to generate donations. He gives a portion of his profits to Pay the Rent, whose premise is that non-Indigenous Australians should âpay rentâ for the land theyâre on. A council of Indigenous elders distributes those funds to First Nations people to fund everything from education to healthcare without government intervention.
âEven if itâs a Wikipedia search,â based on his labels, âitâs enough to start a conversationâand thatâs the whole point, right? The wine is a liquid conversation,â says Tausend.
For Jack Buckskin, a Kaurna and Narungga man who has devoted his life to recovering Indigenous languages, traditional names add an important level of specificity.
âAdelaide is a very new name,â he says. âItâs not significant to the place. Through colonization people have put other names in places that arenât relevant to the elder. By putting things on labels like that, it helps people realize the place theyâre standing on.â
âAdelaide is a very new name. Itâs not significant to the place. Through colonization people have put other names in places that arenât relevant to the elder.” âJack Buckskin
He mentions that early colonizers often recorded Aboriginal language as a monolith, rather than recognizing linguistic divergences between cultures. He suggests that winemakers considering adding Indigenous words should seek âconsultation with your First Nations and traditional ownersâ to make sure they get it right. That could be as simple as looking for organizations such as Kaurna Warra Karrpanthi (KWK), where Buckskin is involved.
Although both The Other Right and Tausend use vineyards that are leased from growers, Jasper Button of Commune of Buttons is an estate winegrower.
âI donât feel like itâs necessarily a wine-specific thing,â says Button about the impetus to add Indigenous place names. âItâs more a responsibility of land users.â

He feels that citing a traditional name calls attention to environmental issues and Indigenous communitiesâ incredibly sophisticated approach to land management. Alluding to bushfires that tore through Australia in 2019 and 2020, Button mentions the Indigenous practice of controlled burning.
âIn Australia, we have a problem of lack of recognition,â says Button. âAnd a lack of public acknowledgment of the people who were here and still are here. It needs to come to the light and anyone working on the land should acknowledge the country theyâre working on. Thatâs the beginning, thereâs a lot more to learn.â
Until mid-2020, James Erskine and Sophie Taylor of Jauma Wines felt hesitant about adding âPeramangk Countryâ to wine labels. Black Lives Matter protests changed their perspective.
âBy not acknowledging this farming and winemaking being done on Aboriginal land that was not ceded to whites, I am dishonoring, and showing my white privilege,â James says. âThe action of fear is an action of white privilege.â
A name may also acknowledge the ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are still marginalized. For example, recent data indicates that Indigenous Australians are disproportionately incarcerated. As well, billion-dollar mining companies are permitted to destroy sacred sites, ignoring ongoing pleas to âHeal Country.â
âWe havenât gone anywhere,â says Buckskin. âIn all these countries, youâve got First Nations people alongside you, but a lot of people donât want to bring them to the table. Youâre disrespecting them even more. By building relationships and bringing them to the table, youâre offering respect.â