As consumer demand has grown, many festivals have popped up over the country where wineries can promote their products. The San Francisco International Wine Competition is annual festival that awards prizes for certain categories including a Label Competition.
Judges based their decisions on the winery’s custom label designs including aspects of artistic merit and “brand-enhancing communicative qualities.”
Double Golds for Series Design were awarded to the Telish Winery’s 2010 Merlot, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon blend and Cabernet Sauvignon. The labels on this series are set on a white background and feature different fonts for the letter “T.” Each font represents a different wine from the line.
For Individual Design, Double Golds were awarded to Dearly Beloved’s 2009 Forever Red. Its label features an intricate skull inspired by the Mexican designs prevalent in the country’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration but made entirely out of symmetric flowers, leaves and vines with a gothic font representing the logo above it. The tag line “Back to the very Earth” is written below the skull’s chin in a lyrical font similar to the vines in the skull.
In addition, VML’s 2010 Pinot Noir Limited Release Russian River was awarded Double Golds for individual design. The bottle’s label is an ode to the aesthetic set by Renaissance-era scientific etchings, featuring heavy shading, keen attention to detail and a parchment colored base with black graphics. The font is strictly new roman and gothic. The central figures depict an almost pagan ritual of individuals adoring bull skulls, dressed in robes and worshipping the large sunflowers beside them and the sun in the center-top. Below this is a chart of moon orbits and roman numerals. The sentence “At equinox fall they planted the first seed and left it in the hands of the moon and the stars,” is printed by the winery’s logo.