Eeny Meeny Miny Moe at the Wine Shop
Wine labels help cinch the sale, so wineries invest big bucks to catch your eye
Posted: May 11, 2011 11:00am ET
There's a shop in my
neighborhood with a whopping wine selection. It must have 50 different
Chardonnays on the shelf. That's a damn lot of Chardonnay to choose from. A
casual consumer wouldn't know where to begin.
Wouldn't it be great to have
a wine expert on hand every time you shopped? I could use a little help with
Italian wines myself. Savvy wine retailers have staff working the aisles, but
most wine consumers are on their own, and they're lucky if the shelves are
posted with a handful of recommendations or reviews.
Retail shelves are the
frontline of the battle for the consumer coin. For that reason, wineries spend
a lot of time and money on labels.
For those of us who are
serious about wine, the label design is insignificant. But for occasional
drinkers, the label can be a significant part of the buying decision. If
consumers have to choose among four or five Cabernet Sauvignons in their price
range, going by the label is no worse than counting out "eeny meeny miny
moe."
There isn't a lot of exact
science on wine labels, what works and what doesn't—not that major producers
aren't always trying to figure what to do next.
In the old days, all a label
needed was a vineyard scene or (even swankier) a château. If the winery was
really in a trailer park and didn't own a single vine, it didn't matter. Those
classic old-school labels still appeal to some wine drinkers, such as
collectors stocking an imposing cellar, but bottles stacked on store shelves
need more pizzazz. Consumers are always looking for new and different wines.
They crave the next big thing.
There are fads of course,
like the critter labels popular a few years ago. You couldn't avoid the
menagerie of penguins and goats and marsupials and lizards. Believe me I tried.
Now there are plenty of wines with silly names like 7 Deadly Zins, Cleavage
Creek, Fat Bastard and even Kung Fu Girl. Stu Pedasso was a favorite of mine.
But a snappy name or label
does not a successful wine make. Artisan winemakers start in the vineyard, but
major wine players think on a Hollywood scale. They target a specific audience
(women or millennials for example), then research their preferences, create a
wine and packaging that appeals to the target, and finally test market it
before a final premiere.
That's how things work at
Treasury Wine Estates and other big California wine companies. Francesca Schuler
is the chief marketing officer for Treasury, which includes wineries such as
Beringer and Penfolds, and she shared a few new projects with me to give you a
better idea of how certain wines land on retail shelves.
There's Sledgehammer, a
Cabernet and Zinfandel with a North Coast appellation that sells for $15. As
the name implies, the wines are boldly flavored and its target consumer is
young male professionals. Irreverent comic/actor Adam Carolla is the brand's
"face." The label is brash red color and has big, vivid lettering.
Two labels—Emma Pearl and
vin Parfait—have an eye on female consumers. After all, women reportedly buy 80
percent of the wine in the United States, according to research by Sonoma State
University.
Emma Pearl is aimed at
professional women age 35 to 44 with busy lives and kids. The labels are
gracefully designed, and the wines are Central Coast Merlot and Chardonnay
retailing for $16. The vin Parfait line consists of two wines, Chardonnay and a
red blend; both have a touch of sweetness and sell for $14. The target audience
is professional women age 21 to 34, single or newly married, and the label is
frivolous and feminine.
These wines are already
being test marketed around the United States and may be on a shelf near you.
For purists, these sort of
market-driven wines are examples of crass pandering, and I can't argue with
that. Yet even highly regarded wines like Bordeaux first-growths and California
cult Cabernets are packaged to present a specific personality.
At the same time, the people
drinking these new wines just may be the future purists. There's room enough
for everyone.
As Schuler puts it, "You can
spend a lot of time on packaging, but if the wine isn't any good, who cares?
Ultimately it's what's inside the bottle the bottle that keeps them coming
back."
What's
your view on wine labels? Do they influence your buying decisions? Which labels
do you think are most or least effective?
If I know the wine the label does not matter on a conscious level. But I am sure it does on a less conscious level- a very cool label such as that on Far Niente may add some perceived quality to the wine and make it taste better. It obviously cannot make a bad wine good, but it might make a good wine better. The same might be said for the bottle itself. A big, thick bottle with a deep punt also suggests higher quality (and price) and might do the same as a good label. If I am not mistaken, it seems that Caymus has gone to a more substantial bottle for their regular cab fairly recently.
Otherwise, a label can definitely serve as a tiebreaker between two lesser known wines I am considering buying at the same price point. It's just human nature to pick the more appealing package. I am sure this goes more for lower priced wines- if you are spending a lot on a wine you have probably done some research into what's actually in the bottle.