Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/1031957
PACKAGING INTERVIEW 60 WINES&VINES October 2018 Sauvignons, we have a Bordeaux-style bottle with strong shoulders. But for our newly re- leased Four Virtues Bourbon Barrel Aged Zin- fandel, the marketing team wanted to break from the normal wine package constraints and create an image which signaled the wine inside was different — a bold, bourbon-barrel-aged Zinfandel. Taking a cue from the unique barrel aging regime, we selected a heavier, high-shoul- dered bottle with a bulbous top reminiscent of a bourbon bottle. The response has been great on this wine, which has terrific shelf presence. Q Are there some cases where the pack- aging or branding didn't work out as you expected? Cahill: Packaging is always an educated guess. Take our Lander-Jenkins brand, for example. It's named for general manager and proprietor Morgan Zaninovich's great-grand- father, and we wanted to convey the agrarian history the Zaninovich family has in both farming and ranching. Before the Zaninovich family established roots in California's wine country, their great-grandfather, Rees T. Jen- kins, ranched and farmed in Lander, Nev. The label conveys a rancher motif and Old West- style font. We felt the silk-screen design and the font selection conveyed the substance of this message. Focus groups found the label appealing, approachable and, more impor- tantly, they indicated a desire to buy the wine. But on the shelf, the graphic did not stand out as we had wanted it to as a silk screen. We are in the process of altering the design so the brand name, the varietal and AVA "pop" on the shelf. A resident of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Laurie Daniel has been a journalist for more than 35 years. She has been writing about wine for publications for more than 21 years and has been a Wines & Vines contributor since 2006. PRIVATE AND CONTROL PROJECTS A small part of Rutherford Wine Co.'s business is developing control labels and private labels, and while Jim Cahill said he could not discuss specific clients or wines, he was able to discuss both in general terms. Control labels, Cahill said, are designs that the company produces and registers with the government, and then offers to commercial entities, usually retailers "who desire a unique product of consistent quality that they can price without fear of commercial competition. … We do the compliance and coordinate the bottlings for the customer. They distribute and promote the product. The catch is that we own the label. This prevents the account from sourcing from other venues. Private labels, on the other hand, are developed primarily for on-premise accounts that have developed a niche market as a restaurant or hotel, either an individual business or a chain. "They design their own labels and we help them with the registration," Cahill said. "They are contracted for a set number of cases or a contract of a year minimum. They come to us because of our reputation for producing consistently high-quality products, a high level of service and attention to detail." With a few exceptions, the private-label wines are generally non-vintage California bot- tlings, drawn from the company's commercial production.