Let your bottle tell the story...

...and let your product back it up
 
As authorities, wine-purists and connoisseurs each have their own trained eyes when choosing the next bottle – either by region, grape, producer, vintage, or even alcohol percentage, the industry is (quickly) shifting. As discussed in last month’s ProWine Asia Newsletter, the budding group of millennial wine-consumers are representing more and more of the target audience in the wines and spirits industry.
…Precisely why the labels displayed on the bottles are becoming so important. Coming back to Old World vs New World products and producers, labeling is one of the reasons why the latter offers a friendly product.
 
Labeling for the Layman Wine Consumer
 
Image result for easy wine labels
 
Old World Wines can be intimidating starting from the label, simply because they expect the consumer to hold certain prerequisites and experience in choosing - they must be deciphered at first glance and can be seen as meaningless mumbo-jumbo to wine-rookies.
 
A typical Old World label might read like this: Château Cantenac Saint Emilion Grand Cru, 2010
A typical Old World label could very well also be without any colorful graphic or typeface. What kind of story does this tell? Let me rephrase – what kind of story does this tell to a rookie-consumer?
 
New World Wines labels might read like this: Pinot Noir 2014: Product of Napa Valley [coupled with a humorous photo of a cat on a bicycle]
 

 
To a novice to intermediate consumer tends to gravitate towards the latter – do you see why?
 
But Why?

 
Wines from traditional regions must communicate more information on their bottles. Old World labels underline Terroir – all things which have to do with the environment of where the wine was born. The ones in the know, know the fine details of different terroirs - its soil, water, air, rainfall, altitude, among other things which can affect the grapes which are birthed there!
Different laws administer grape-growing based on certain terroirs – Chianti, Bordeaux, and Rioja being some examples.
 
On the other side of the coin, New World Wines don’t have such stringent lines drawn within their geographic regions. As an example, American wines read easier because not so much information has to be transmitted to the consumer on that little piece of label.
 
In a nutshell, Old World Wines must communicate more information on their bottles when compared to New World Wines – reason coming from the more tightly drawn fine lines of production, all the way from the grape.
 
No matter where your wine or its grapes are from, what’s outside the bottle means more and more to the new generation of consumers – in Asia and worldwide. Product labels are now of much greater importance in the wines and spirits industry. Balance the old and new to provide a friendly face without (deeply) offending purists.
 
Let your bottle tell the story – and let your product back it up!