When we visited Montemaggiore Winery we had the opportunity to try their 2002 Syrah Paulo’s Vineyard, which is their flagship wine. Here it is 2010 and they still have some 2002 hanging around. There are still great discounts to be had with this wine and it is really drinking nicely right now as I mentioned during our Syrah Madness tasting back in March.
“It was inky with candied black fruits and pepper on the nose. The palate presented deep blackberries and raspberries and had the longest finish of the nite. Just tremendous.”
So, while talking to Vincent about the wines he shared with us the fact that their marketing consultants had encouraged them to change their labels just a few years ago. As you can see by the snapshots, this was quite a change. Montemaggiore describes the Paulo’s vineyard as their “flagship wine [which] epitomizes elegance, subtlety, and sophistication.” If you take a look at the older label I would certainly consider it more whimsical and colorful than elegant and sophisticated. Additionally, looking at the new label I think they did a good job of matching the package with their message. What do you think? When wines that display yellow fish or orange kangaroos on their labels seem to catch the attention of many wine drinkers these day, does it make sense to go back to plain, 2-toned, torn-paper look?
Some other minor changes to notice:
Front
- Addition of “Estate Grown”
- Addition of raised/stamped seal that says “mountain grown – estate wines”
Back
- Addition of ”exclusively”
- Removed “family’s”
- Replaced “hillside” with “mountain”
I was surprised to see the whimsical label being revealed as the winner of the Syrah madness. How could a purple and red almost-gaudy-looking bottle (is it the house wine at Barnum & Bailey’s?) contain such wonderful contents ??
I like the new label and am definitely more drawn to it. It is elegant and sophisticated and better represents their grape.
I’m not opposed to cartoon characters, braille, or even Nazi propaganda on the label as long as the wine sings.
But as I glance at our kitchen cabinet-top collection, I notice that all of our favorites are of the more elegantly styled ilk.
Ed – Of course now that you’ve posted about this memorable wine, the ’02 Montemaggiore bottle must be displayed in your kitchen if its not already!
Nice witty comments, Jason! And I agree… I am draw more to “classical” style labeling as well… we’ll have to raise a glass of the new vintage to see if it tastes any better now
Ed,
I was a graphic designer for eight years, and I can get pretty picky about labels. I try not to let too much of it leak onto the blog, but I’ve actually avoided wines because of the font selected for the labels. There are a few typefaces that I simply despise, and it’s hard to separate that loathing from the contents of the bottle. After all, if they don’t give a damn about design, what does it say about the wine? Nothing, of course, but we all have our petty hatreds.
I’m always impressed by wines that have created great brand awareness, even though it limits your future options as far as changing it. For example, anybody can recognize a bottle of Veuve Clicquot from a distance, or even just in the background of a movie. Penfolds has a nice, simple design that’s been around for ages, but I think suffers because the $4 bottle looks exactly the same as the $100 bottle, so you have to know a lot about vintages and individual vineyards to determine what’s what.
Something that is fun to look at right now is the evolution of Greek wine labels. They’re going from very staid designs leftover from the 70s with poorly-translated English towards more approachable, friendlier designs that are more attractive to the American consumer.
Benito, very good perspective! Good to have someone with some expertise in this area to bring some objectivity to the matter. I’ll have to check out some Greek wine… I’ve only tried one I can recall