How do you choose a bottle of wine when you’re in a wine store or supermarket? The type of grape or vintage year? The “expert” ratings? The price? The country or region? The producer or Chateau name? The store’s promotional tag? Well, perhaps one or more of these are included in your criteria but you might be surprised to learn that the design element on that wine bottle influences most buyers and maybe even, at times, the more knowledgeable wine drinker.
So what information is provided on a wine bottle label? Let’s start with the legal/regulatory requirements and for purpose of this article, I’ll only address United States rules. The “Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau” (TTB) regulates most of the information required on labels, even including the type, size, font and to some degree the placement of this information.
But first, some of the basics. Many holiday meals involve a healthy serving of turkey. “Why turkey?” you may ask. It turns out that goose was the favorite holiday meat for quite a long time – it was relatively cheap and abundant and, according to some, tasted good. Turkey, in addition to being sleep-inducing right before football games, was considered less pedestrian than goose and apparently favored by King Henry VIII, who mandated the big switch. Head-chopping may have entered into Henry’s decision making, but we’ll leave that for another time.
There are nine TTB primary label requirements:
- Producer or brand name.
- Bottler’s name and address.
- Varietal (grape) designation, viticultural area.
- Country and appellation of origin (where the grapes were grown).
- Alcohol % by volume.
- Vintage date (year the grapes were harvested).
- Bottle volume content (750 ml is a standard bottle volume).
- Sulfite statement, such as “contains sulfites”.
- Government health warning statement.
Let’s now turn to the more aesthetic aspect of wine labels which are the design elements.
While ancient forms of etching very basic information on wine containers existed even in pre-Roman times, it was not until the nineteenth century that actual paper labels became common throughout Europe as more modern aspects of marketing were developing. Producers throughout wine producing countries increasingly used designs to promote their wine as valuable and of high quality. It sounds simple enough but let’s fast-forward to the mid twentieth century. After World War II ended, famous wine-maker Chateau Mouton-Rothschild began an annual program of having some of the world’s most famous artists, including Chagall, Picasso and many others design their labels. It got attention. So impressive were these labels that even today some can be found at art and wine auctions. Marketing through designs on labels exploded.
It is said that “a picture is worth a thousand words” and because there are so many marketing agencies pitching wine label design, wine newsletters, wine bloggers, and of course, the many thousands of wine producers, it must be true. Today you can’t walk into a private wine store, supermarket or even a Costco or Total Wine without being overwhelmed by the choice of wines. Perhaps apart from the wine expert or collector, it’s very often the design element on the label that first grabs attention and influences decision-making for the majority of people shopping for a bottle of wine. It’s that first impression that can stop you along the wine aisle as you view myriad designs, scenes, colors, script, crests, all in some way promoting wines that may be “rich and bold,” “light and friendly” or perhaps even “organic and eco-friendly”.
So the next time you walk down those rows of wines with shelf after shelf of competing products, whether red or white, whether U.S., French, German, Australian, Spanish, Italian or Chilean, know that the majority of buyers purchase that wine in part because of the design element on the label. I certainly have done that myself.
Cheers!
-Submitted by Jim Wolitarsky
(Image credit: Pixabay.com and Vinepair.com)