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While a winemaker crafts a wine, it’s artists who are often handed the task of selling it — creating a bottle label that stands out on shelves, compels a thirsty shopper to pick it up, and expresses something about the wine inside.
Eater’s design director Brittany Holloway-Brown spoke with three visual artists to learn about the process. A few takeaways:
Wine labels often start with actual works of art — created with pencil, watercolors, or, if you’re designer Mel Barat Bours, Japanese brush pens. “I draw or write before anything becomes digital,” says Barat Bours, who did the label for Cantina Senesi Aretini's Gatto Grosso. Brush pens “are a really tactile way to engage your senses while you create.”
Sometimes the label determines the wine name, not the other way around. When illustrator Matt Huynh started designing the label for Grochau Cellars’s pinot noir, he was working with the name “Indecision.” But after some initial sketches, “we decided that the aesthetic and mood of the label was more important at this stage than its exact name, so ‘Indecision’ was open to change.” He and the consultant on the project ultimately landed on “Roman Candle.”
Drinking wine helps. “I do enjoy wine, and working on projects like this adds a dimension to that experience because I start to contemplate the visuals that might express what I am tasting,” says artist Alphachanneling, who did the artwork for Bam Bam, a pét-nat from Martha Stoumen and Las Jaras Wines.
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