Message on a Bottle

Community Comments

The finished result, a dreaming geisha surrounded by floating sushi, made sales go through the roof, says Grahm. “It was a revolutionary label, and I truly believe it made all the difference,” he says.  

Labeling concepts and decisions aren’t often made like that anymore. As more wineries are brought under corporate arms, a marketing department makes the decisions. “When we work with a big brand, we usually don’t work directly with the winemaker unless he is part of a team,” says Horiszny. “Marketing writes a positioning profile and a target market analysis. Then we try to convey what the wine will stand for and how to make it appeal to that particular target market.”

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Besides the label, wine-packaging experts are sometimes responsible for naming new wines. That’s what Horiszny did for his first project — coming up with the name Columbia Crest. “The Northwest’s wine industry was in its infancy. Our client, Chateau Ste. Michelle, was the only well-known winery there, but it wanted a less-expensive brand that could stand on its own,” he recalls. “We thought of a name that could give recognition to the Columbia River Valley, that was easy to pronounce but had an upscale appeal. Columbia Crest fit the bill in that it sounds elegant, memorable and is easy to say.” 

Like other products, names come from office brainstorms and target consumers. The winners are sometimes tested by focus groups or just selected solely by the clients. Horiszny’s latest name-making project was coming up with “Three Blind Moose” for Constellation Wines.

Even the slightest of labeling tweaks can make a difference in sales and image. Horiszny has worked with Kendall Jackson for 15 years and tweaked its label every three to four years. To keep boosting Kendall-Jackson’s image of quality, he made gradual changes such as cleaning up and refining the overall design, using higher-quality paper and using richer colors on the leaf logo and border.

“Because they were using estate grapes, they wanted to show a more exclusive, elegant bottle and have a more conservative package design,” he says. It worked. Kendall-Jackson soon became one of the best-selling premium wines in the nation.

Bottles are not impervious to retouching, either. “There are aspects of the glass that signal quality,” says Horiszny. “A higher-priced wine uses heavyweight glass and feels more substantial when you’re holding it.” Color also makes a difference. Twenty-five years ago, Pate’s eye boosted sales for Woodbridge white zinfandel, which was selling poorly. “I had never heard of white zinfandel, but I thought it was a pretty salmon color,” Pate recalls. After she put the wine in a clear glass bottle and added a salmon-colored flush at the corners of the label, Sutter Home ended up selling 400,000 cases that year.

Pate is also responsible for the most recent revolution in wine packaging — the capsule-less bottle she designed for Robert Mondavi in the early ’90s to replace the old-style foil-covered capsule bottle. Inspired by Mother Nature after a stroll through the Mondavi vineyards one day, she created a cork with a logo sealed in wax in a simple bottle made of recycled glass. However, it turned out that kind of glass couldn’t produce the right color.

• Share
  • Digg This
  • del.icio.us
  • Newsvine
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Furl It
  • !Y My Web
  • Google
• Email
• Print

Recommend This

Community Comments