As reported by this blog, many celebrities and affluent personalities have extended their own personal brands by releasing their own wine labels, whose marketing helps play off their already pre-sold audience.
These individuals include film director Francis Ford Coppola, actress Drew Barrymore, a trio of Greenbay Packers’ football players and now former NFL wide receiver and ESPN football analyst Keyshawn Johnson, who has launched his own label called KJ1 – playing off his initials and his accolade of being the number one draft pick in the NFL’s 1996 draft.
“I’ve enjoyed wine for years and for me, Cabernet is king,” said Johnson in a press release.
Which may explain why Johnson’s first vintage is going to be a 2007 Cabernet based out of Echo, Oregon – a state with a burgeoning wine industry. Johnson’s partner on the project is R.C. Mills, Los Angeles-based restaurateur, according to Wine Spectator. The bottles will reportedly be worth $125 with roughly 60 cases total in production. Distribution is set to begin in September.
As a professional wide receiver, speed and coordination were of incredible importance in order for Johnson to perform at the levels that he did. While still maintaining the aesthetic of a classic pencil sketch on parchment, the wine label features Hermes – the Greek messenger god who was also considered a patron of athletics, according to the Huffington Post – and his winged feet. The god’s small figure is above the logo KJ1, which is also in a classical font with the same highly detailed pencil etching format.
It’s clear that Johnson is not only playing towards his athletic fame with the label but also nodding to the classical history of wine and athletics. If other wineries wish to capitalize on their brands or personas with custom labels, they may want to invest in a Primera LX900 series color label printer.
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