A TV commercial for an Australian wine company’s Premier Estates Wine has pulled from British TV, after viewers complained about the line: “You can almost taste the bush”.
The Mirror reports that the line ‘taste the bush’ could be read as a reference to oral sex, and it was therefore degrading to women.
Premier Estates Wine shared their ad with the hashtag #TastetheBush.
The commercial shows an attractive woman sipping from her wine glass, and raving about the flavor. She then puts the glass down on a table in front of her crotch, where the shape of the wine as it rests in the glass could be said to look a bit like a vagina.
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned the ad, saying it had received eight complaints.
In a statement, the ASA said: “The ASA considered that most viewers would understand the claim “… some say you can almost taste the bush” to be a reference to oral sex, particularly given that it was accompanied with the image of the wine glass positioned directly in front of the woman’s crotch.
“For that reason, we considered that the ad presented the woman in a degrading manner, and concluded that it was likely to cause serious or widespread offence.”
