What’s in a label?

Meghan — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:39:00 +0000

Wine labels will do it. How many times have you bought a wine because of its label? I know I have. Be it creative or just familiar, labels can make or break the wines sales. And I will admit right now that I have bought some ridiculously designed and named wines. There was ‘Bitch’, which had a pink label in black lettering. Don’t get me wrong, it was well priced and a quite enjoyable Grenache from Australia. Why did I buy it? Because my friend and I thought it was funny. A few weeks later I was back in that same wine store and I witnessed the same scene, two friends walk up the counter to purchase their wines and see ‘Bitch’ conveniently located at the register. The one friend turns to the other and starts laughing and they immediately pick it up and add it to their pile. Smart product placing.

Then there was Evil, a Cabernet Sauvignon from Australia. I’m waiting for the right birthday to surprise a friend of mine with a bottle of ‘Bitch’ and a bottle of ‘Evil’. I know it sounds mean, but listen they’re still getting wine out of the deal. I guess because of the Yellow Tail success, Australian wines feel they have to be uber creative to make a dent. This brings me to the next Australian wine, Suxx. I haven’t bought this one yet, but ‘Suxx’ Syrah does sound tempting.

Sometimes it’s the artistry on the bottle that draws me in. Last week I had this fantastically delicious, angels dancing on your tongue wine. James Iafrati did the label art for ‘Jazz’. “The Jazz Quartet: Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah’ drew us in. From the Branham Estate Wines in Napa Valley, ‘Jazz’ is a bit pricier, but completely worth it. Did I mention that angels will be dancing on your tongue?

Don’t get me wrong, just because the label is awesome doesn’t mean the wine will follow suit. When I see a creative label, I think two things: maybe they are covering up their horrible wine with a cool label or possibly this wine is equal in its creativity and taste. Nine out of ten times I buy it because that’s how I do. Say it’s that one time I didn’t buy the bottle, well I’ll think about going and purchasing it until finally I go and buy it. I’ll let you know how that one tastes. What’s the lesson here? Just buy the wine. Buy those outrageous sounding wines and as always Wine Your Diet.

The magic is in the juice

Tayloe — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:33:40 +0000

When I started working in the wine business in the summer of 2007 I knew a few things about wine. First it was exponentially better to drink than the Natural Light my contemporaries were imbibing at the time. It provides a great way to meet women and convince them you’re more sophisticated than you actually are. And finally there was something I desired to learn about wine culturally, historically and socially; anyone can order a martini and look good doing so but in the world of wine you are constantly finding out new and interesting things. Yet for all the knowledge I thought I had gathered nothing was more humbling than going to work in a wine store, where the people above you spent most of their lives buying, selling and learning about wine. From my time with them I’ve learned a lot about spotting good wines.

First of all, labels mean absolutely nothing, so when you go to buy wine don’t even look at the front label ignore it, there is more useful information on the back like a good importer. In this era of opulence and visually stimulated purchasing, Louis Vutton and Cadillac, take a more refined and dare I say classier approach. I am reminded of the movie Tommy Boy with the late great Chris Farley. Tommy is selling Callahan Break Pads; one of his retailers says there isn’t a guarantee on Callahan’s box. Tommy says you can put a guarantee on shit and its still shit, same thing with wine – creative picture means the winery spent all the money on a design and not the juice. Like a guarantee vs. the actual product. There can and often will be a cute picture on the bottle but the juice, more times than not, is still absolute Swill (a colloquialism used to describe wine not worth drinking).

Best quality indicator – a good importer. While there still are names in wine worth buying anytime you see them there are also many wineries out there that have sold the names to bigger corporations to take advantage of consumer’s name recognition. Cakebread is a great example of a wine that once was a great wine for a good buy and now its just expensive and not much to talk about, one can find better for half the price. Importers on the other hand like Robert Shadderdon, Kermit Lynch, John David Hendrick and Neil Rosenthal, use discretion when picking wines to promote and have built up a strong reputation based on their names.

In closing, to all those wine creators, make sure your brand is innovative, but when it comes down to it, build a rep for finding kick ass juice… easy enough

Grape Thinking » Design

What’s in a label?

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