The first in a three-part series in which the renowned label designers examine the evolution of the craft over the last 20 years, share their own processes, and showcase a collection of their most recent works.

Creation Theory

The identity of a wine is revealed or concealed primarily through its package. Everyday millions of bottles are acquired based solely on the desirability of their design. With other luxury goods the package simply complements the product, but with wine, the package provides the only sensory clues about what lies within. A wine’s package design influences your buying decision, shapes your drinking experience, and is the only memento left at the end of the last glass.

A successful design must defamiliarize the ordinary–deconstructing and reassembling design elements into a new language that is at the same time intrinsically familiar. To create distinction, a wine package projects individuality and meaning amidst a sea of similarity. Drawing on intuition, and improvisation, my challenge is to devise new combinations of symbols that will reveal the unique personality at the heart of the brand. Each design is a process of chaos and creation– a chance for renewal. I approach every new project with a beginner’s mind, full of wonder and curiosity, and devoid of preconceptions. With a child’s enthusiasm, I stuff my pockets with rocks and twigs from the vineyard, make notes on tabletops, and slip out of bed at midnight to scribble arcane doodles on scraps of paper.

As patrons go, vintners are among the most visionary and passionate. Each vintage brings renewed possibilities in the quest for the ideal. My challenge is to translate my client’s vision of who they are, where they belong in the world, and what they are trying to achieve, into a philosophical expression, a visual narrative. In an extraordinarily personal process, I act as a medium between the inner life of my clients, and the inner life of the people who drink their wine.

Icons

Alpha Omega

Napa Valley, California

From the Classical Greek, Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the alphabet and as such represent the intersection of the beginning and the end, a point where starting and culmination meet thus symbolizing the continuity of the vintages, each growing season inextricably linked to the past while offering the promise of renewal and another chance for perfection. With a lustrous surface of ebony enamel and gold bronze, the Alpha Omega icon epitomizes modern minimalism, while it’s deeper meaning emanates from ancient philosophers.

Boarding Pass

Barossa Valley, S. Australia

The concept for Boarding Pass arose from, of all things, a scheduling challenge with a trio of Australian superstar winemakers. When the time arrived to review preliminary label concepts for their new luxury brand, the peripatetic nature of their respective itineraries between Melbourne, London, New York, and San Francisco was such that, not only were they never in the same place at the same time they were frequently not even simultaneously on the ground. The luxury brand that eventually ensued is described elsewhere in these pages, but it was impossible to resist presenting them with this tribute to their airborne peregrinations as well.

Boarding Pass comes complete with an airport baggage-routing strip as a neck label, airline boarding pass (of course an airline had to be invented as well), passenger wine-consumption instructions on the back label, and a twist-off emergency exit for the wine itself, which was created specifically for this package.

 Bounty Hunter Bourbon

Napa Valley, California

The Bounty Hunter is purportedly on a relentless quest for the finest wine and spirits, and what he can’t find, he makes. Such is the case at hand: 21-year-old, small batch, unfiltered, Kentucky Bourbon (pronounced cane-TUCKee burr-BONE). The languorous penman script flows with ease. The engraving of Hermes, astride a still comes from an 1888 revenuer’s stamp.

FogDog

Sonoma Coast, California

According to Merriman-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary a fogdog is a bright or clear spot that appears in a breaking fog. A fogdog is pretty much a daily occurrence at the

Freestone vineyard where the fog rolls in off the Pacific Ocean just a view miles to the west. Fogdog is also a metaphor for the moment of clarity that abruptly breaks through a cloudy mind. Much like a flash of inspiration that breaks a writer’s block. Everything comes into focus as the sun burns off the maritime fog, leaving behind just a hint of moisture in the morning air.

Rombi

Carmel Valley, California

This diminutive single vineyard winey is located on an isolated ridge top in Carmel Valley. While the production may be small, the personalities are bigger than life. Rombi is a well-known local name and the bottle requires little more than the producer’s moniker and the vintage date as in impetus to buy. The sleek urban design quite consciously presents a stark contrast to the rustic old west character of the vineyard local.

Blue Rock

Alexander Valley, California

Sometimes details are extraneous: The brand is everything you need to know. Exuding confidence, Blue Rock is a statement in minimalism, a reflection of cosmopolitan opulence. The conceptual context is reduced to a meditation on the color blue– not just any blue– but a specific and proprietary iridescent blue found only here. The source of this fascination with blue is derived from the ribbons of serpentine strata running deep below the surface of the vintner’s Alexander Valley vineyard. The horizontal blue strip of a label, and its reflection in the capsule, are the leading identity cues, with typography playing only a supporting role.

Le Canard Froid

Santa Cruz, California 

Le Canard Froid– “The Cool Duck”– was an experiment, perhaps more successful graphically than viticulturally. “What if Cold Duck were cool?” A duck peering existentially into the bell of a saxophone echoes the indisputably cool iconography of the Blue Note jazz album covers from the 1950s and 1960s. The label proclaims the artist: Le Canard; and his magnum opus: Froid. Although a one-time-only product, the legend lives on posthumously in that great jazz tradition. Only the good die young.

Devil's Canyon

Napa Valley, California

Devil’s Canyon takes its name from its near mythical, though very real geographic location. High in the Mount Veeder range, a treacherous gorge, hewn by ancient volcanic eruptions, divides Napa and Sonoma Valleys. Amidst the abundant flora and fauna, a few dozen acres are carved from the ridge-top caldera. Reminiscent of a medieval contract, the quill-penned labels are singed by flames and affixed to bottles capped with crimson sealing wax, presenting a droll Faustian reference. From both the inkwell and the inky depths of the glass emerges one hell of a wine.

Inniskillin

Ontario, Canada  

From frozen desiccated berries arises a wine that is sometimes called the nectar of the gods. Requiring the temperature to dip ten degrees below zero for five consecutive days, there are only two places in the world with conditions suitably severe enough to produce ice wine. Emulating this alchemy of nature, a swirling vortex effect is created by layering three metallic inks of various intensities.

The rarest of rare wines, when the season’s frozen berries are finally harvested, the premium grapes are pulled aside and oak-aged for Inniskillin’s luxury ice wine. Presented in a sensuous hand-blown crystal decanter, resembling an elegant perfume bottle, the only branding appears on the cork and attached booklet.

 Joseph Phelps Freestone Vineyards

Sonoma Coast, California

The vineyard scene on the Freestone label was shot with a large format view camera. Because each exposed plate is removed from the camera and secured and new one installed there is a delay in shooting each consecutive image of the panorama. This turned the session into de facto time lapse photography as well. The sun is seen coming up through the morning fog on the left and we see the fog burning off by the time frame number three was shot. Ah... the joys of 19th century technology.