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148 WINES&VINES January 2016 PACKAGING Designer Dreamscapes Creative wine packaging concepts are out there, but not all find a home By Jane Firstenfeld S tar packaging designers who addressed Wines & Vines' second annual pack- aging conference in August 2015 seemed to agree: The North American wine in- dustry tends to be ex- tremely conservative about adopting novel packaging designs and solutions. For a business that is inher- ently creative (a new vintage every year, farming and legal challenges, shifting market strategies), this might seem off- kilter. On the other hand, the New World's belated embrace of wine as a mass-market bever- age—and the practicalities of retail display and home stor- age—do, in some ways, mandate conservative decisions. Even if it might stand out, few dare try to sell a wine that won't fit on shelves and wine racks. On- premise sales are often ignored in the design process. Winemaker and restaurant consultant Pietro Buttita, who attended the Wines & Vines Packaging Conference, com- mented afterward: "It is often assumed that restaurant wines don't need creative packaging, but the buyer still needs to have interest and the packaging can help anchor that decision-making process, especially in that meaty $10-15 wholesale per bottle zone." Buttita's Rosa d'Oro brand produces some 2,000 cases annually in the Kelseyville Bench appellation of Lake County, Calif., giving him first-hand understanding of market- ing boutique wines. "Small producers are often not so great with general brand design and integrat- ing website, packaging, print collateral, etc., in a meaningful way. With the plethora of brands out there, there really isn't much reason to assume that anyone is unique, or that 'small, family-owned' means any- thing," he said. "Label design seems like a burden to many small producers, the last thing they want to think about. Or it is outsourced and clearly unconnected. I encourage small wineries to think of it the opposite way, as chefs think of their menus. "The bottle is the primary document, and though dialing it in is a long process I feel that grower/producers (whom I pre- fer to work with) need to think of it as the executive summary of their business plan—that icing on the cake. Especially when you only have a few hundred cases, keep it meaningful and personal. So many bottles out there lack integrity, like a menu that doesn't deliver or transparently convey the experience to come. Even small labels spend a lot of time guessing what the consumer wants, rather than focusing on the nature of their product," he said. For Rosa d'Oro, Buttita worked with Kerri Green Design of Oakland, Calif., to draw heav- ily on Old World southern Italian packaging for the style. This, Buttita said, "Gives it a sense of location in time and place using screen-print bottles that work with our limited bottling space. The wine was not made in an interna- tional style, so hopefully the packaging reflects the style markers to some extent," he said. "This might be the exception when brands reach for either modern labels or classic. Noth- ing is more disappointing than super-neat packaging and boring, oak-chipped, sweet 'anywhere-wine.'" Design inspiration "The only thing this team loves more than untangling a challenge and doing good, stra- tegic work is having fun doing it with people we like," said Jim Carey of Doubleknot Creative design agency in Seattle, Wash. "We specialize in helping businesses reveal their brands and differentiate themselves." Some wine companies will take a risk to do that, Carey said. "At the time when silkscreen was just becoming popular, we proposed a full frosted bottle with gold leaf silkscreen on a burgundy bottle. It was beautiful, but it was also quite expensive. Trying to prevent scratches presented a real bottling line challenge." Since then, he noted, "The silk-screen applica- tion has become more mainstream in the wine industry, but we've moved away from it as most KEY POINTS Specialists in winery packaging are some- times frustrated when conservative clients reject their most original ideas. Despite continuing strides in materials and techniques, costs and timing can inhibit commercial adoption of new approaches to packaging. Many wineries start with a concept resembling other packages. This is not a good idea: Be authentic to yourself and your brand. The packaging for Rosa d'Oro draws heavily upon an Old World southern Italian style.