Fashionable Wine Labels
By Matt Sheker
“Research has shown that 60 percent of people buying wine base their decision on the look of the bottle and the label,” says Bob Nugent, curator of collections for the Benziger Family. There are two schools of thought when wineries design a wine label. Do you want to have your wines in a restaurant where the standard classy, elegant label is desired, or do you want a fun label that will be purchased from your local wine store because the label makes you laugh, or tells a story through unique packaging?
Amazingly, a tremendous amount of thought and energy go into designing wine labels. After all, with so many winemakers and different choices for consumers, you need to have either name recognition or a remarkable eye-catching label to make your wine stand out from the crowd. Wineries have the advantage of being able to use unlimited creativity and resources for their label designs. The ATF (Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco) requires that certain information be presented on the wine label; however, most wineries give the labels personality to reflect the character of their wineries. The wine label can play a huge role in the success or failure of a wine, regardless of its quality. Yellowtail from Australia, for example, which is widely credited with starting the “crazy critter” trend, sold 7.5 million cases in the United States in 2005, making it the most imported wine in the United States. People were buying it off the shelves at a staggering pace based on the appearance of the label and not the contents of the bottle. The winemakers’ note on the back of the bottle describes raspberry, oak, and soft tannins, but instead, you taste a noncomplex sweeter wine that’s more like fruit punch/ But at least the wine label gave the guest at your extravagant party something to talk about besides the quality of the wine. Chances are, without a kangaroo or a penguin on the front of the bottle to catch your eye, you would not have purchased that particular bottle. Europeans, who have been making wine for years and have a long and intimate history with wine, consider geography to be the single most important factor when classifying a wine. This is different from American wine as well as other New World wine-producing countries where the wine is named for the grape varietal as opposed to where the wine was made. The European system reflects centuries of trial and error, so that by now, growers have figured out the best places to be as flamboyant with their labels because their wines come from a region of California, which is known for producing award-winning wines.
Because most Europeans buy their wine based on region and producer, there hasn’t been much need to put a lot of effort into coming up with flashy labels. In the United States, however, loud and showy packaging is almost a must to get noticed on the rack. In some of the larger wine stores, you can find just about any theme you can dream up on a wine label. Some go for high art, others for cartoons, and still others have a choice of animals of all sorts. Some wineries have opted for a retro look in an effort to instill the notion of sophistication, and others have gone with the basic black-and-white label with a fancy script font to resemble the classic wines of Europe.
Wineries know full well that many Americans buy wine simply on how appealing the label is. This is often done to compensate for lack of wine knowledge, and that is why wineries invest so much time and expense in producing something that is so eye-catching. Most wine stores have a great selection of wines with “crazy critters” and traditional wine labels. Ask your local wine shop if the wine inside the bottle compensates for the wine label, or if the wine label compensates for the wine.