I'm a big fan of these labels. It's good to see designs that aren't just about looking nice but actually engage the mind.
I particulalry like "Puzzle Time" on the left. You can see that within the word search there are terms like "blackberry" and "toast" that presumably are part of the tasting notes that you discover as you drink it. There's something brilliantly playful about it that's a million miles away from the normal "dry, elegant and crisp" tasting notes that adorn the back of most bottles.
You can see from this blog post by Budget Vino that the label has worked a treat. It gives a reason for people to engage with the wine label and learn more about what makes it different from its rivals. I'm intrigued to see their other labels and whatever else they are up to.
Angella and Hayley, masterminds of the Tasting Sessions and most recently architects of Towards a Fluid State, have moved the goal posts so far that most booze brands planning a tasting experience won’t be able to see them.
Having arrived in an alleyway in deepest darkest Dalston we were greeted by a scene out of a Soviet dystopia mixed with a touch of Mad Max. Russian versions of the Enigma machine checked us in before we entered the experience. In another life the venue doubles as a photographers studio for Vogue fashion shoots and used to be a mechanic’s garage.
Our first encounter (depicted by an octagon in the map above) featured a flight of sake from Akashi Tai paired with Japanese nibbles from Tsuru. The sake progressed from the expected through to an almost whiskyish brown spirit that paired exceptionally well with a ball of sesame crusted ice cream.
But the oral tasting itself is only a small part of the experience. Drag queens chilled out next to us as an amazing artists doodled Japanese Animae on a wall. It all set the scene for a mind bending introduction.
We turned a corner and all of a sudden we’d translocated from Tokyo to Jarnac. The Courvoisier experience featured a bar serving Exclusif cocktails ranging from the classics like the Sazerac and Sidecar through to the more experimental blackberry jelly shot flecked with gold leaf that is best consumed from a spoon.
Courvoisier’s Le Nez experience was in full flow, showcasing the incredible aromas held within the cognac. It was a very special moment for me to see an idea I worked on come to life, and in such style. A flight of Napoleon, XO Fine Champagne and Initiale paired with caramel lollipop, lavender crème brulee and port and stilton truffle was phenomenal. I’m biased, but you’ll just have to believe me. It took me back to the food and cognac pairing we developed with Alexis from Roussillon.
The experience also included a chance to watch Courvoisier’s 3D film which helps to explain what makes their cognac so special. The whole experience was artfully curated and looked spectacular.
We slipped out of Jarnac and landed up in the midst of a Lady Gaga video-shoot. Philip Li, who is renowned for his weird and wonderful ceramics performed an incredible piece of art which mainly involved him being wrapped in cling-film, clay and bin bags. For anyone who saw Lady Gaga on X Factor on Saturday, you’ll see the connection. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
Philip Li’s performance along with a surreal Telly-Tubby-esque grass floor that moaned and suggestively glistened with jewels formed a bizarre backdrop for a tasting of biodynamic and natural wines paired with raw food from Saf.
Joe McCanta, is one of the leading sommeliers and mixologists in town. And like Angella and Hayley is a member of the Courvoisier Future 500. His collection of wines were all wonderfully obscure. Our favourite combination was a pairing of Burgenland Pinot Noir with beetroot cannelloni – which I think I may have had when I visited Saf. The wine was light and supple and formed a perfect marriage with the beetroot.
We didn’t get stuck into the whisky and cheese tasting- for which I can only appolgise. But it looked very similar to the “Throw Away your Prohibitions” event I raved about at Bart’s. The waft of phenomenal cheese from La Fromagerie was sensational. Highland Park and The Macallan featured alongside Connemara, Singleton, Clynelish, Dalwhinnie and Lagavulin.
Instead I headed upstairs to a secret speakeasy bar that was serving Maker’s Mark cocktails to a crowd of adorers. The bartender, from Zuma, whipped up a cracking array of cocktails starting with a Blueberry Smash infused with mint for the ladies and a State Mule for the gents which was like a fizzy Old Fashioned. We missed the music but apparently Plaster of Paris and the Dulwich Ukulele Club put on quite a show.
We then found ourselves in the Rich or Ruin experience being wowed by Sipsmith’s Gin which was served as a warm punch a la crachit with a tickle of ginger beer. Sipsmith’s Gin opened very recently in Hammersmith, making them the first gin distillery with a copper still to open in London for 189 years. Their approach is a breath of fresh air. They have embraced the blogosphere (Dinner Diary and Cheese and Biscuits) and are very active on Twitter. If anyone is looking for a spirits brand that is using social media in a smart way, then have a long hard look at the chaps at Sipsmith's.
We then dived into a molecular cocktail courtesy of Chase Gin. They make vodka using English potatoes and have now launched a gin made from apples! Bonkers. But brilliant. To make things even more special it turns out they were launching this new apple based gin at Towards a Fluid State, so we were some of the first to try it. Their cocktail featured Herefordshire cider, molecular balls of apple juice and gin. It was designed to be paired with a feast of roast pork expertly cooked by the good folks at Bacchus and accompanied by a the sounds of a baroque harp and violins.
Hayman’s Gin showcased a collection of three gins ranging from their standard gin, their Gin Liquer that’s like an old fashioned Genever) to the uber-botanical Old Tom that was served through an ice sculpture of a Tom Cat, much to the delight of a very over the top Japanese TV presenter.
We left Towards a Fluid State thrilled and in awe of what Hayley and Angella had achieved and gagging for more. It was exhilarating to have been part of something so far ahead of what others are doing. Girls, what’s next?
The Inventorspot blog describes these two vital drinks innovations. Firstly, Playboy Wines offers "a once a month delivery service of unique vintages of wines which come with a label that features a vintage playboy magazine cover". And not entirely unrelated, although it's not clear whether this is meant to benefit the wearer or her companions, is this wine rack bra, which really needs no further description.
"Educated Guess Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is the winery’s first release and our flagship wine. The name “Educated Guess” came about during a lively, second bottle of wine conversation about winemaking styles, vineyard sites, and the progressive escalation of wine prices without comparable increases in quality. The discussion then proceeded to the “art vs. science” aspect of winemaking and after a few more glasses of wine…“Educated Guess” was born!!!
So ask yourself this question: Have you ever found yourself in a wine shop or restaurant perusing the wines and wondering…how do I choose the best wine for the money? You may admire a label, recognize a name, or recall a great review…in essence you’re making an “Educated Guess.” This is exactly what goes on in the vineyards and wineries around the world. Should we pick the grapes now or wait? How long should we barrel age our wine? Should we use French or American Oak, or both?
We use our knowledge, intuition, and years of experience to make the best possible decisions; however at the end of the day it still remains an “Educated Guess.” At Roots Run Deep we have done all of the Guesswork for you, and produced the richest, ripest, and most complex wines you can buy for the money. So when you won’t settle for less, “Buy Educated Guess.”
Oh, and everyone wants to know about our unique label. Our label was designed to tell the story of how you can make an educated guess in winemaking, not to give you nightmares about your high school chemistry class. It shows you actual winemaking formulas that are either induced or naturally occur during a specific winemaking process. For those of you who aren’t chemists and want to know more about what the 5 formula strings on the label mean, please email us and we will happily send you more information. For the rest of you, drink up and enjoy!!!"
I love this. It's a wine with an idea behind it. And that's rare. I'd love a bottle of this. It looks so fun.
I love the teardrop design on the label. Very cool indeed.
Spotted on Liqurious initally, but this article is from Lovely Package who have a fantastic site that showcases the best packaging from around the world. The design was done by nine99 design.
This is a bit of a weird one. But hey, why shouldn't Alfa Romeo have a range of Italian wines that are designed to look like the iconic Alfa Romeo grill?
"Encouraging people to organize their own wine tasting parties, 4xProeven (Tastingx4) combines a board game with a four-pack of wine.
The concept is simple: four small (0.375 litre) bottles of red wine are packaged in a carton that folds out to a board. Four blank stickers are included to hide the bottles' labels. A leaflet explains the basic elements of wine tasting: look, smell, taste and compare. It also describes the four single grape varieties included in the game. Players shuffle the bottles and start tasting. By comparing a wine's taste to the four descriptions, the objective is to guess which is Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Shiraz. Just launched in The Netherlands, 4xProeven is currently sold online for EUR 24.95 and by a small number of wine shops, and the company is planning to launch internationally soon.
While wine tasting games certainly aren't new, they generally include game elements only, not the wine itself. And here's where we think 4xProeven missed a great opportunity (or maybe they're working on it). Instead of including unbranded wines, partner with a well-known label and turn the game into a smart and simple way to tryvertise, getting customers to sample a variety of reds or whites while connecting with the brand. We're sure Springwise has a few readers at E&J Gallo and Jacob's Creek. Time to give this one a spin? ;-)"
"When we first covered San Francisco-based Crushpad back in 2005, the idea of a winery in an urban centre was surprising. Crushpad has since blossomed, and now a like-minded contender on the opposite end of the nation is picking up on the notion and combining it with a wine bar.
Due to open this fall, City Winery will combine a wine bar and event space with a fully operational winery in the heart of Soho, New York City. The private-label winery—apparently the city's first—will let consumers choose their favourite grape, consult with City Winery's master winemaker and then crush, ferment, bottle and label their own bottles of wine. The company will have the capacity to make about 300 barrels of wine in its first year, and 200 of those will be dedicated to a limited set of members, who will have access to City Winery's state-of-the-art equipment and professional team. Grape varietals will be sourced from vineyards in California, Oregon, Washington State, New York, Chile and Argentina under strict temperature control, and customers will be able to work with City Winery's specialists in person or online to customize their barrel, participating as much or as little as they like in the process. Membership is available on three levels, beginning at USD 5,000 annually plus the cost of grapes, barrels and labelling for about 250 bottles of wine. Wine classes are also included, as is the opportunity to trade bottles with other members; wine sales, however, are prohibited. About a third of City Winery's barrels have already been sold, according to its site.
City Winery's venue side, meanwhile, features a flexible space that can accommodate up to 200 people seated or 400 standing, with an in-house stage and sound system. A full catering kitchen is onsite to serve the venue's multiple dining and tasting rooms, while the wine bar will have more than 50 wines available by the glass each night. Through City Winery's VinoFile membership program, customers can track their wine consumption and get related suggestions from the on-site sommeliers and winemakers. A special cheese bar from Greenwich Village-based Murray's Cheese, meanwhile, will be manned by a full-time expert to create the appropriate wine pairings from a selection of over 30 cheeses. City Winery also plans to create unique pairings of private concerts with such delicacies as wine and chocolates, mushrooms or truffles, port or scotch.
Frequent Springwise readers will undoubtedly notice the way City Winery's efforts tap into the customer-made and still made here trends, while offering consumers some much-sought-after status skills to boot. Will City Winery follow in Crushpad's footsteps and relax its rule prohibiting wine commerce among its customers? We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, one to watch!"
Fascinating article from the BBC that could influence some of our sampling techniques and lead to talkability.
"Playing a certain type of music can enhance the way wine tastes, research by psychologists suggests.
The Heriot Watt University study found people rated the change in taste by up to 60% depending on the melody heard.
The researchers said cabernet sauvignon was most affected by "powerful and heavy" music, and chardonnay by "zingy and refreshing" sounds.
Professor Adrian North said the study could lead retailers to put music recommendations on their wine bottles.
The research involved 250 students at the university who were offered a free glass of wine in exchange for their views.
Brain theory
Four types of music were played - Carmina Burana by Orff ("powerful and heavy"), Waltz of the Flowers from The Nutcracker by Tchaikovsky ("subtle and refined"), Just Can't Get Enough by Nouvelle Vague ("zingy and refreshing") and Slow Breakdown by Michael Brook ("mellow and soft")
The white wine was rated 40% more zingy and refreshing when that music was played, but only 26% more mellow and soft when music in that category was heard.
MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS Cabernet Sauvignon: All Along The Watchtower (Jimi Hendrix), Honky Tonk Woman (Rolling Stones), Live And Let Die (Paul McCartney and Wings), Won't Get Fooled Again (The Who) Chardonnay: Atomic (Blondie), Rock DJ (Robbie Williams), What's Love Got To Do With It (Tina Turner), Spinning Around (Kylie Minogue) Syrah: Nessun Dorma (Puccini), Orinoco Flow (Enya), Chariots Of Fire (Vangelis), Canon (Johann Pachelbel) Merlot: Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay (Otis Redding), Easy (Lionel Ritchie), Over The Rainbow (Eva Cassidy), Heartbeats (Jose Gonzalez) Source: Montes wines
The red was altered 25% by mellow and fresh music, yet 60% by powerful and heavy music.
The results were put down to "cognitive priming theory", where the music sets up the brain to respond to the wine in a certain way.
"Wine manufacturers could recommend that while drinking a certain wine, you should listen to a certain sort of music," Prof North said.
The research was carried out for Chilean winemaker Aurelio Montes, who plays monastic chants to his maturing wines.
Mr Montes said: "It was therefore a natural extension to link with Heriot Watt and to scientifically determine the impact that music has on how wine tastes."
Previously, Professor North conducted supermarket research which suggested people were five times more likely to buy French wine than German wine if accordion music was played in the background.
If an oompah band was played, the German product outsold the French by two to one."
Jeff Jarvis featured 'the social media sommelier' Gary Vaynerchuck in his Guardian column today and on his blog at Buzzmachine.com
"Before you read this, do me a favour and go to WineLibraryTV.com Be prepared for a jet engine in your face. That blast of personality is Gary Vaynerchuk, a 32-year-old merchant who has made more than 450 daily wine-tasting shows online - just him, his glass and a spit bucket.
The show, with its audience of 80,000 a day, has transformed Vaynerchuk into a cultural phenomenon. He has appeared on two of the biggest TV talk shows in the US and in the Wall Street Journal and Time. His book, Gary Vaynerchuk’s 101 Wines, comes out next week and the day he announced this on his internet show, his fans immediately pushed it to No 36 on Amazon’s bestseller list. He has a Hollywood agent. He makes motivational speeches. And he has only just begun. Gary Vaynerchuk is on his way to becoming the online Oprah."See the full article at Buzzmachine here or on the Guardian site here
Previous post on this blog about a similar idea - the Winery channel - here
From the ever brilliant Springwise expanding on their notion of Tryvertising - or sampling as we call it:
"Wine may be enjoying new popularity, but that doesn't mean the average consumer isn't still daunted by the knowledge it takes to pick a bottle they'll like. We've written about several efforts to simplify the process, and now WineSide is taking a novel approach by offering wines packaged in sample-sized tubes.
WineSide offers both sweet and classic wines in patented, flat-base glass tubes with screw tops carefully engineered to protect the wines' flavour. The sweet wines—which include Sauternes and Muscat, for example—are available in 6cl tubes, while the Pomerol, Chateau Neuf du Pape and other classic wines can be purchased in 6cl or 10cl sizes. WineSide's collection represents a range of appellations and producers; tubes are available individually or by the box, which can be chosen to provide an introduction to a variety, year or region. Kicking off retail sales, the products are available exclusively at Colette in Paris this month.
In addition to giving consumers a new way to sample and discover wines, WineSide's tube format also promises to give vintners new tryvertising capabilities at relatively low cost. The French company's website is still under construction, but it says it is looking for distributors. One to get in on early!"
Sounds neat and looks very smart. Plus the link with Colette is guaranteed to get them trendy coverage and make them seem desirable. But isn't selling little bits of wine to Parisians a bit like selling sunshine to the Sahara?
This looks very cool indeed and I wonder whether it would work for whisky and cognac? Or any other spirit that derives its quality from being blended...
"Dedicated readers may recall Crushpad, an urban winery we've already discussed on two separate occasions, and now the busy vintners there have given us reason to cover them yet again. Just before the holidays Crushpad introduced fusebox, a wine blending kit that lets users experience the wine-making process at home.
Crushpad's 15-pound fusebox was created to contain everything a group of four might need to explore how some of the world’s greatest wines are blended: Six 375 mL bottles of blending wine from some of Napa's finest vineyards, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc; one 375 mL bottle of Mystery Wine; one graduated cylinder and 4 pipettes; four wine evaluation cards; four tasting place mats; recipe cards, a vinography aroma card and a corkscrew. Using the kit, wine enthusiasts can try to re-create classic Cabernet blends or invent their own; they can also test their discernment skills on the included Mystery Wine by playing the “Guess the Mystery Blend” online game at fuseboxwine.com. fusebox is priced at USD 120 and available for shipping only within the United States.
“Crushpad’s mission is to turn consumers into creators,” explains Michael Brill, CEO of San Francisco-based Crushpad. “Whether it’s the multiyear experience of making a wine from vine to bottle or just spending a few hours with friends enjoying a blending session with fusebox, we want to give individuals the opportunity to experience the fun and sense of creative expression that comes from making wine.”
Crushpad has always specialized in helping enthusiasts understand and make their own wines, providing desirable status skills along the way. With fusebox, that experience becomes an insperience, making for a winning combination. Crushpad is in the very early phases of signing up fusebox retailers and distributors. One to bring to the rest of the wine-loving world!"
This is fascinating. It goes to show that people are becoming increasingly interested in buying experiences. There is a human need to do things that make them becoming more interesting. More rounded. And they are happy to pay for it!
"It seems that wine is really in with the 20's crowd and they're a changing force in the market. Starting around 2003 their impact on the industry started to show. The "Millennial Generation" love wine, and what they like isn't all big Cali Cabs or Oaky Chards. For them it's all about fun and offbeat wines like Malbecs from Argentina or a Tempranillo from Spain. And I can relate. These are the wines I love. Sure I'll dive into an Old Vine Zin, or Big Bold Cab, but show me something new, interesting, and different, like a golden and lively Ribolla Gialla , a Sangiovese blend from Maremma, or a dry sparkling wine like Gruet from New Mexico; and I'm all over it.
As one of the early Gen X crowd, sometimes called Gen Jones, I saw the whole change in the wine industry first hand; working in wine shops in the NYC area in my late teens and early 20's. When I started, French wine was it. Old world, elegant and refined, somewhat snooty; and not very accessible. Boring, just like the older Baby Boomers before me who had brought back an interest in wine to the US. These were wines that seemed more for show than enjoyment. (The younger Baby Boomers were more into vodka and illicit substances.) To a few of us young Gen X'ers, German whites, dry or sweet; were daring and fun. Most of the rest had a White Zin as their first wine, sort of a Gateway Wine that led to trying something a bit more serious, but not stuffy. Californian wines started to make a showing, and slowly took over to become the Big Jock on the Block. Later The Aussies stepped up to the plate where they overwhelmed the world with good wine at a low price and in Quantity. The wine industry keeps tabs on these trends and just love where it's heading."
There is a very good article in the LA Times about Young Wine Enthusiasts. Here's the picture:
If people are keen to become connoisseurs / more knowledgable about wine at a younger age the implication is that the same could apply for cognac, whisky and tequila.
