The Personality of Wine Labels: Fowl Products

As a designer, I love wine labels. I also love stamps. They're tiny works of art that are entitled to framing. They define the character of the wine, even tell a story, if you will.

As an artist, I learned from my professors that an artist creates 2 kinds of art: the pretty kind that sells and the kind an artist does for oneself. As a creative, the artist has to continue to feed and express the soul -even if no one else views it. It doesn't matter if anyone ever sees the piece created because the theraputic value is priceless. Even a MasterCard commercial cannot compete with 'priceless' provactive art.

Additionally, as a marketer, I also know that pretty art sells. We create attractive art to attract customers. This includes wine labels -and stamps.

Let me move forward to my personal experience with buying wine -solely on the merit of the pretty label. Like anyone, we go thru phases of likes and dislikes. This includes drinking nothing but shiraz one season and merlot another season. Some decision making might be strictly from the design of the label. This is where I must tell you about fowl on bottles.

I have learned, from a personal tasting experience, not to purchase wine with fowl on the label. Why? They stink. Okay, remember, this is from a personal experience. I expect a consistent experience from any winemaker product or any product for that matter. The fact that I have tried nearly all wine with fowl on the label is consistent -it's just foul. Unfortunately, it also includes a bottle we picked up yesterday: The Little Penguin Shiraz from SE Australia. Our issue was that it had an overpowering cherry odor at the initial front end then trailed off to a finish of nothingness. We were also eating prime rib and feel that a shiraz, a good shiraz, can match the meat very well. This one, however, did not. We were sorely disappointed in the fruitiness of the overall experience. Make no mistake, it was not a 'bad' wine, I just wouldn't buy it again. That's our story and we're sticking to it.