How to Design a Wine

Sometimes, it’s what’s on the bottle that counts

After spending more time in the advertising and marketing world than I care to mention, I’ve gained a real appreciation of the many clever ways winemakers try to make their products more appealing to the consumer. And it’s not always by improving the way the stuff tastes.

After all, when you see a bottle on the shelf in your local wine boutique and you’re not familiar with the particular varietal or producer, how do you decide whether to plunk down $ 30 or $ 40 on a liquid that may well be a mystery?

Of course, if it says “cabernet sauvignon,” you may have a general idea of what that particular varietal is supposed to taste like, and if you’re fondling a bottle of sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, you have every right to expect flavors of grapefruit, pineapple, scents of new- mown hay and maybe a little lychee on the finish. Fine.

The fact is, no consumer product reveals less about what’s in the package than a bottle of wine. So how do you decide?

If the producer is new to you, all you have to go on is the brand name, the label design and possibly the shape of the bottle. That’s where the creativity comes in. These days, winemakers are falling all over themselves to create that all- important first impression. They’re coming up with cute little animals ( Yellow Tail being a good example of a whole class of libations that have come to be known as “critter wines”), hand- painting the labels, inventing outrageous product names and developing bottles that are most decidedly nontraditional in shape.

One favorite is an old standard: PerrierJouët Fleur de Champagne comes in a bottle painstakingly hand- painted with little white and gold flowers. It’s dear to me because my wife and I drank a magnum of it ( or two) on our wedding night. The bottles are collector’s items.

Then there are artist series wines that may also come in hand- painted bottles. Kenwood is perhaps the most famous producer of artistic bottles.

The most historic artsy labels belong unquestionably to Mouton- Rothschild, whose bottles showcase the work of a different famous artist every year. We’re talking Miró, Chagall, Braque, Andy Warhol and others of that ilk. In 1973, when the wine was finally elevated to first- growth status in Bordeaux, the label was painted by Picasso.

My very favorite wines, though, in terms of quality, creativity and sheer marketing genius, come from a winery called Sine Qua Non. Its owner, Manfred Krankl, makes outstanding, teeth- purpling grenache, syrah and other huge reds, puts them in different weirdly shaped bottles every year, sells them for upwards of $ 300 a pop and gives them different names such as Eleven Confessions, Dangerous Birds, Over & Out and The Nineteenth Nail in My Cranium.

Of course, the real test comes upon the extraction of the cork. All the artwork in the world won’t make a bad wine taste good, but it may influence your decision about what to pull off the shelf.