Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/766392
114 WINES&VINES January 2017 PACKAGING site at the winery and in limited allocations to on-premise U.S. locations. Solely for club members, bottles in the Artist Series have a unique, artist-designed label for each vin- tage. At $45-$65 per bottle, Hoopes said these are seen not only as great wines but also as collectibles. Wines in the Nth Degree line are limited production reserved for Nth Degree Club members with a handful of cases for on-premise accounts. "From a packaging standpoint, we use the same quality and weight of glass, high-quality paper labels with embossing and foil for all of the collections (except Nth Degree, which is packed in a screen printed, slightly heavier bottle). Nearly every wine in the Wente Vine- yards collections is finished with natural cork. The few exceptions are wines for which a screwcap is deemed to convey a fresh, ready- to-drink style, primarily Riesling and Sauvi- gnon Blanc," Hoopes said. The Wente procurement team declined to name its suppliers for glass, labels and corks, saying that having multiple options ensures competitive pricing and availability of the products when they are needed. View from the corporate ladder Treasury Wine Estates, a multi-national com- pany that owns Napa wine brands including the historic Beaulieu Vineyard (BV) and Beringer Vineyards contends with tiers within each brand. Marketing leaders Megghen Dris- col and Seth Hynes discussed how they handle the complex multi-tasking. Designs must be so clear that consumers instantly recognize the quality level while shopping, they stressed. "We expect that when consumers drink BV Cabernet for $30 as their Friday night-at-home wine that they will step up to (the flagship red wine) Georges de Latour at the steakhouse on Sat- urday night or when buying a gift to bring to dinner at a friend's house. Obviously, when you see the Georges de Latour, it will look more premium, more special," they commented. Brands must evolve to keep current; the parchment paper labels, gold embossing and flanged tops of the 1990s are long gone. Some packaging changes are radical; others are more evolutions of a classic. Georges de Latour pack- aging changed to stay ahead of the times while retaining authenticity cues to honor the integ- rity and 75-year history of the brand. The BV Coastal brand, meanwhile "made a revolution- ary change," the marketers said. The BV brands range from Coastal at $7 per bottle, to Napa at $30, Rutherford ($45), Tap- estry ($65) to Georges de Latour at $140 per bottle and Rarity culling the top price of $1,000 for a 1.5-liter bottle. The company expects that packaging cues will help to educate consumers. "We don't have the luxury to educate all consumers, but we do spend tremendous time on packaging de- Beaulieu Vineyard's multiple wine tiers, shown here from the least-expensive Coastal Estates (left) to