That was Randall Grahm, owner and winemaker at Bonny Doon Vineyards, in his keynote speech at this year’s Wines and Vines Packaging Conference. He explained that when he first bottled his Californian Pinot Noir, he went with simple labels, believing that it was better to “let the wine do the salesmanship”. When he began to bottle Rhone varieties in the 1980’s, he began using humor in the labels, such as his famous “Cigare Volant” label with an illustration of a flying saucer flying above a vineyard, based on a French regulation banning flying saucers over vineyards in the Rhone region.
By partnering with well-known artists, and through the use of humor in their wine labels, he saw success; however, he warned the attendees that “cleverness in the extreme isn’t always enough”. He went on to say: “Your wine label is something like a real opportunity to potentially bond with your customer, to create a mini-affinity group”.
Jessica Gaedeke of Nielson Innovations reported that 4,289 new wine items have been launched in the past year. Gaedeke pointed out that making decisions surrounding packaging becomes all the more important. “Only packaging reaches 100% of potential buyers at the first moment of truth”, going on to say that 50% to 80% of purchasing decisions are made at the shelf. All highly influenced by packaging and design.
Another interesting event at the conference was a panel discussion of alternative packaging such as bag-in-box, aluminum cans, Stainless Steel and PET kegs. “The glass bottle has to die at some point”, remarked Nicolas Quille, chief winemaking and operations officer for Crimson Wine Group. Quillle provided a checklist of what to consider in evaluating alternative packaging: size, materials, cleanliness, and recyclability. Skolnik wine barrels are easy to clean and offer excellent reusability. Click here to see the full line of Stainless Steel Winemaking Barrels from Skolnik.