Wine branding in the age of the meme
During the lockdown periods here in London, I’m willing to admit that one of my main sources of daily activity has been to walk to the local wine shop and peruse the shelves. I’m willing to admit, too, that I have often just picked a wine just by its label. It’s difficult not to, when natural winemakers have embraced unusual labels and artistic individuality in the designs, often wildly different for each wine they make.
Wine labelling has always been a canvas for expressing the ethos and heritage of the winery behind the product; conventionally, however, labels have generally adhered to signifiers of ancient European heritage (adorned with blackletter typefaces or calligraphic fonts, references to “Châteaux” from even North American winemakers, formal borders and aged-paper effect colouring) or classic cues of luxury packaging (especially the use of black and gold). These visual tropes work to communicate a sense of wealth and aristocratic prestige to consumers. Likewise, artistic styles such as formal painting and woodblock style prints suggesting a longstanding heritage in European craftsmanship and skill that takes many years to perfect. Overall the suggestion is that good wine must be rooted in centuries of unchanged practices and passed-down knowledge and heritage.
Within Natural Wine however (a loosely defined and often debated term, but generally referring to wines that are made by small scale producers, often organic without added yeast or much winemaker intervention), it’s clear from the non-traditional packaging alone that “natural” and “low-intervention” wine has become a space in which both producers and brands are claiming space to experiment, innovate, and throw many conventions out the door. Heritage and connection to an ancient château is not relevant here. Perusing the shelves – digital or physical – of a natural wine shop, a consumer is greeted with phantasmagoric array of imagery, graphic styles, and naming conventions. From the graffiti-esque Sylvain Bock logo, to the mocking wink-face emoji on Claus Preisinger corks and labels, to the expressive hand-drawn illustrations on Ruth Lewandowski bottles, the conventions have been largely thrown out the door in favour of demonstrating individualism, humour, artistry, and the creative freedom of the maker.
Rather than seeking out a wine rated by an expert on a traditional scale, the new packaging conventions suggest engagement with wine on a personal, subjective level. In a sense shopping by the art on a label seems as good a reason as any to choose a wine; these artistic, or irreverent, labels communicate the attitude of the winemaker to his or her craft. During one of my many trips to the local restaurant-turned-shop I remember briefly speaking to one of the staff about this, who agreed that to a certain extent a label does speak for a wine; that is to say, if a winemaker is interested in working with an artist to create something truly unique for a label, they are likely interested in working creatively with their own product as well. It seems that rather than seeking out the commonly-accepted “best,” natural wine and its packaging is giving us room to explore in our own way.
Who wants prestige anyway?
These new branding conventions exist in a wider context, however, and reflect what seems a shift that has been happening in food and dining overall. Beyond showing individual artistry, they demonstrate that for a new generation of wine consumers and makers heritage and traditional prestige matters less than authentic craftsmanship and a personal story. Tied up with the traditional winemaker connection to heritage, history, and aristocratic wealth, there has been a common perception that an interest in and passion for wine and the processes behind it necessarily involve a level of ‘snobbery’ rooted in exclusive access to knowledge, products, and spaces. Increasingly however, Millennial wine media such as Wine Folly or the podcast Wine for Normal People speak directly to a need to make classic wine knowledge more accessible. And in wine shops and wine-focused restaurants, the imagery used in branding, communications, and even spaces suggest an interest in re-defining the world of wine and the acceptable ways of approaching it as a product.
Contemporary wine shops and restaurants are also helping shape this narrative for a new generation of wine lovers through their branding, online experiences, and brick-and-mortar shops. A sense of humour and playfulness is evident in these brands – a departure from the self-conscious seriousness and decorum traditionally associated with wine tasting. Case in point is the colourful, cartoonish, and often surreal covers of the Noble Rot magazine. The illustrations drawing on graffiti, skate culture, and even psychedelic imagery align the magazine with rebellious sub-cultures. Before cracking open the cover we see that it is not a publication – or approach to the industry – that takes itself too seriously, or cares much for formal conventions and rules. Likewise, the social media presence of shops such as Top Cuvée, which has been keeping its fans entertained with imaginary text conversations between government officials discussing lockdown, and playful, down-to-earth commentary on their products and day-to-day operations. This reflects a broader trend in culture to favour fun over navel gazing seriousness, reflected in other industries such as fashion, as mentioned recently by the FT. In these strange times leading into the 2020s, why should anyone take themselves, or what they drink, so seriously? Breaking the rules of an industry is fun, and enjoyment takes increasing priority over seriousness, status, and prestige these days.
This humour ultimately serves a purpose to demonstrate a break from past rules and conventions and a desire to think about the wine industry from a totally new perspective. We see this coming through linguistically in Wayward wines, a shop in Leeds with a nationwide online store, which shouts out simply through their brand name: a word meaning straying from the path to follow personal whims and opposed to what is conventional or expected. And in line with this, many of the cultural references and visual cues being used by these brands and restaurants are rooted in the digital and urban culture of millennial wine consumers, rather than in the origins of the wines themselves. Top Cuvée draws on various cues of rebellious skating culture and youthful street style, featuring graffiti-style bubble lettering on products and their logo, tie-dyed t-shirts bluntly stating “Orange Wine”, and limited edition cotton sweatshirts printed with semi-ironic slogans. This is two worlds, traditionally completely separate, now colliding: nonconformist youth culture with the refined adult world of wine connoisseurship.
WINE IN THE AGE OF THE MEME
Particularly as we increasingly rely on digital shopping platforms for shopping, wine brands are also drawing on youthful internet culture to push the industry forward. Low Intervention’s online shop and social media draws on surreal, playful, and ironically old-school tech imagery – bright blue and orange, warped Word Art style text - their website appearing more like a Gen-Z clothing brand than a traditional wine shop, with LOW in large blocked font ready to print on a branded hoodie. This is often used with a touch of knowing humour and playful nostalgia as well, but a nostalgia that is distinctly different from the European aristocratic norms traditionally found in wine. The semi-ironic trip to the digital past that we see occurring across fashion and pop culture, when used in the wine industry, is no longer so much about nostalgia but about rewriting the norms of an industry.
Low Intervention’s dedication to re-writing the rules of wine shopping and drinking goes further, however, into suggesting natural wine as a completely unique entity separate from any industry we have known before. The brand itself is embodied in the form of a grey alien, who makes an appearance to interview winemakers in place of any human representative from the brand. Across their website and comms suggestions of new dimensions through warped illustrations of planes, and X-Files style grainy film footage to suggest a connection between low intervention wine and otherworldly life and knowledge. And there is a pattern emerging here: Noble Rot has also employed a similar metaphor, notably in their new book “Wine From Another Galaxy”. Ultimately this type of imagery and language being used in selling wine suggests that the company and the wines they sell are totally removed from the heritage of ‘earthly’ conventional wines. And while all these brands are unique in their styles and nuances of how they communicate, all together they are suggesting that we need a new way of approaching wine and its consumption.
These trends in branding and communications give a sense of where the wine industry – and perhaps many specialty food and beverage industries – may shift in order to be relevant with Millennial and Gen-Z brand expectations and lifestyles in the long term. What we see is a rejection of previous ‘wine snobbery’ including formal rules and rituals, aristocratic visual cues and connections to historic, European locations and traditions. Millennials are known for valuing experiences over material ownership, and this break from the established wine world reflects this: they are willing to pay for unique, experimental products with a relatable story and artistic flair. Ultimately younger consumers expect wine that is less serious, less tied to traditional ideas of heritage and prestige, and more transparent and accessible.
IS THERE A PROPER TIME AND PLACE FOR WINE?
But in addition, it also leads to a larger question of how wine can be “properly” enjoyed: what are the occasions, settings, and pairings that are appropriate? Or is there any reason to adhere to such rules in wine-centric bars and restaurants? The answer seems to be that, just as the traditional rules of branding and talking about wine are less relevant, there is increased permission to give up on the traditional rules and pairings. Something I am curious to explore (whenever we escape lockdown and restaurants have a chance again) is how design and cuisine can play a role in this new wine world too. While many of the new wine-centric restaurants seem to be centered around variations of traditional western (meat-centric) food, there are likely many other cuisines that would pair well with, say, a gamay. There seems to be here an opportunity to test out new cuisines and ways of cooking. Sadly now-closed Bubbledogs in London was an example of a restaurant using this kind of playful ethos with their menu, self-consciously blending “highbrow” (champagne) and “lowbrow” (hot dogs) to reimagine what Champagne is for, when it should be enjoyed, and by whom.
Likewise, while natural wine is a premium product with a premium price point, use of counterculture imagery and youthful democratized internet humour is breaking down the traditional upper-class highbrow associations with the drink. As such, we have more space to think about the spaces and rituals around drinking it – who does it, where, and when. This may be reflected in the spaces where wine is sold and enjoyed – less ritualistic, rule-bound, and orderly and instead playful, informal, and even a bit chaotic. The Tillingham vineyard bar is one example I think of, a space that blends industrial and rustic, artisanal features, with mismatched furniture and candles jammed into wine bottles. It exudes informality, warmth, and the brand’s ethos of experimentation and ever-changing combinations and approaches to makership. It will be interesting to see how these branding trends shift into the physical spaces in the wine world, but that is an exploration for when we are finally out of lockdown and can order a bottle to the table with friends again.
