by Michelle Greysen

Created on: April 29, 2009

The Art of Labeling Wine

Although alcoholic beverages may have had their beginning as an accidental fermentation of honey or grape juice more than 5000 years ago the art of labeling the wine bottle has become anything but an accident. With both wine making and wine tasting truly becoming art forms it was only natural that the labels themselves followed suit.

Labeling power has huge impact in any industry both in product promotion and consumer selection but the ability to marry art world appeal with savvy wine consumerism is fast becoming the true art behind a bottle of wine. The sexy business of successfully serving-up the best wine is a marriage of the five senses. The more pleasure enhancing the package and in turn its label the more likely the bottle will beg from the shelf to be taken home.

Is the art commissioned for the wine or is the wine spirited to match the art? The answer is both and although the label has to make the consumer want to pick up the bottle the wine has to make them come back for more. Either method of this chicken and egg, swill and label puzzle has to produce marketing success and the seductive art of labeling is heating up worldwide.

The days of family crests, landscapes or grape clusters are being left behind for labels described by the once palate pleasing terms of tasting, incorporating imagery that is nothing short of stimulating, sweet, seductive, catchy, playful, clever, whimsical, spicy, lavishing, charming, both simplistic and complex yet with a natural beauty.

The old pass labels of masculinity featuring a wolf or a hawk have been updated by the likes of the whimsical labeling of California's Cline Cellars along the total removal of any unnecessary snobbery often associated with wines. In the not to be taken too seriously category is Cline's Red Truck wine, available in both red and white, said to have a bright fresh character not unlike the obvious bright fresh label featuring a vivid red 1947 Dodge Stakeside.

Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz Ca. has to be one of the best examples of whimsical art meets powerful marketing with their labels practically shouting out from the bottle "Take me home and play with me!"

The web site offers the doontoons animated story lines behind many of the proclaimed Python-meets-South Park' labeling of Bonny Doon's wines. Their self-dubbed alternative Dooniverse' works its way off the label and into every aspect of their marketing right down to a published mantra of "Have as much fun with wine as

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