The San Francisco Business Journal last week had an article on a topic that’s long interested me: the importance of label design in marketing wine. The article talked about “people in grocery or wine stores looking perplexed” when confronted with the Wall of Wine. (Last June, I blogged on this topic.) So when I ran into my buddy Thomas Reiss, who owns one of the Central Coast’s top wine label design firms, Kraftwerk, I asked him seven questions concerning the ins and outs of label design. Here they are, with his answers.

Thomas Reiss

How do you come up with a label for a start-up brand?
TR: Three things. Research the target market. Then develop the best possible creative solution, which is often directed by the market. For example, we sometimes want to do something super-creative, but a lot of our clients are mainstream, so that would be a mistake. Finally, customer service. I wouldn’t mind having most of our clients over to my house, and a lot of people forget about that.

How does a winery know when it needs a label redesign?
TR: Sometimes, distributors will give them negative feedback that the brand is stale and they need to do something about it. But unfortunately, most brands don’t notice until it’s really hurting them, which makes it harder. The more ground you’re losing, the further behind you are. If you wait until your biggest distributor drops you, it’s too late, whereas if you do some research earlier, you have not as much to catch up.

What’s the worst idea you ever heard from an owner?
Oh, they’ll want to add more junk [like] bad colors. Or they’ll come in with a design and it’s just awful! But I always tell them. It’s one of the things I’m famous for, keeping it real.

What are the main target markets?
TR: There are three. Snobby high-end wine collectors where price doesn’t matter: “I have to have it.” The 25-35 age group, which is the fastest growing segment. Some designers think a label aimed at them has to be cool, hip, funky and crazy, but a lot of those people want to seem more grown-up and conservative. Finally, there’s the price shopper who wants a decent wine for a decent value.

If you gear to one demographic, how do you avoid turning off the other ones?
TR: That’s where you have to take into consideration other things. If you have a small production, you can afford to turn some people off. It gets harder as you get bigger. Then you have to make sure you don’t alienate people too much by putting all your eggs in one basket. The bigger you get, the more safe you have to get.

What’s your advice to wineries in these hard economic times?
TR: The most important thing is your price-value relation. A few years back, lots of wineries with a $20 bottle sold it for $30. Now, consumers are smarter. So you have to have the right price and keep it fair. The label is only a door-opener.

Yesterday’s Reuters announcement that Amazon.com, the world’s biggest online retailer, will be selling wine starting next month hit the industry by storm. I got through to Terry Hall, the communications director for Napa Valley Vintners, late in the day.
SH: What role is NVV playing?
TH: We held a workshop for 29 wineries on Sept. 4 for them to meet the Amazon folks, and we’ll have another one on Sept. 12, with 50 wineries signed up.
Has Amazon been meeting with wineries in other parts of the state?
Well, 26 states are part of the program, based on reciprocity or on in-market pass-through distribution. Amazon’s been talking to wineries up and down the West Coast. They were in San Luis Obispo and were able to go door-to-door, but because of the number of wineries in Napa Valley, we did the workshops as a member service.
Can you tell me which wineries signed up for the workshops?
That’s not for the public record, but it ranges from small family wineries to large wineries.
Have people been expressing skepticism, or excitement, or what?
It’s information-gathering now.
How will the logistics work?
It’s a traditional Amazon direct-to-consumer model. They’ll use New Vine Logistics, the former wineshopper.com, in American Canyon, which has an incredible fulfillment facility. Amazon will store the wine in a temperature-secured location, and then sell it, through orders from the Amazon hub. Amazon makes money because they buy the wine FOB and sell at retail.
Why would a winery sell to Amazon instead of through their own direct-to-consumer program?
They don’t have to worry about staff or packaging. And Amazon’s staff will be able to make recommendations.
Amazon has a wine staff?
They have a group of wine buyers. The head is a guy named Nate Glissmeyer, based in Seattle. He contacted us for the program.
How much quantity is Amazon expected to handle?
It’s sort of infinite. They’re trying to get as many American wines online as possible.

I am not generally a fan of words such as “new,” “improved” and “revolutionary” when it comes to consumer products. When something is described as “bold” I wince, and see mental images of advertisers trying to manipulate shoppers into buying something they don’t need. But in the case of the Boisset family’s approach to alternative packaging, all these terms are entirely justified.

(Disclosure: I know and like Jean-Charles Boisset, who runs the family’s California ventures, including DeLoach.)

Boisset yesterday announced the debut of Fog Mountain, an organic Sonoma County line of wines that will come in 750 ml. PET bottles. The company also stated that from now on, all Boisset Beaujolais Nouveau (including Mommessin) shipped to the U.S. — some 25,000 cases — will be in PET. The letters stand for “polyethylene terephthalate,” a thermoplastic polymer resin packaging that reduces solid waste by 90%, and is estimated to have a 50% smaller carbon footprint than a traditional glass bottle. Where a standard case of glass bottles can weigh 40 pounds or more (consider some of those steroidal bottles of Cabernet), a case of PET containers clocks in at 22 pounds, representing a potential saving in transport fuel costs and a resulting reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. PET bottles also are 100% recyclable.

Two years ago, Boisset introduced yet another new form of wine packaging with their French Rabbit line of varietals that come in “Tetra Paks” — octagonal-shaped, 1-liter polyethlene pods, sealed with screwtops, that reduce packaging waste by 90% compared to the standard wine bottle. A container of French Rabbit (which is biodynamically grown) weighs only 3% of an ordinary bottle.

Everybody in the wine business these days seems to be talking green this and green that, but Boisset is putting their money where their mouth is (so to speak). Good for them.

P.S. Please read my other blog at Wine Enthusiast’s Unreserved.