design & packaging 2008
A supplement to
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WINE SPIRIT February 2008
introduction design & packaging
Designs for life Wine & Spirit introduces this year’s awards – and the experts who judged them
he 2008 Wine & Spirit Design Awards honour the best launches and redesigns of the past 12 months. They are judged by a panel of experts, drawn from both the drinks industry and the design and packaging industry. Those judges may have an eye for design flair, but far more important to them is effectiveness. So the first questions they asked were: “Does this design fit its brief?” And: “Is this bottle communicating the brand’s message?” In our opinion, all the trophy and medal winners you can see over the next few pages do just that. And, as we hope you’ll agree, they’re pretty easy on the eye, too.
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Michael Rowe
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Cheng Loo
Cheng Loo, chief executive, Wine & Spirit Trades’ Benevolent Society David Williams, editor, Wine & Spirit magazine Jamie Stephenson, bar consultant
The Judges Michael Rowe, creative director, Wren & Rowe Carl Gobie, category assistant, Sainsbury’s
David Williams
Carl Gobie
Jamie Stephenson
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trophy winners design & packaging
Best Champagne and Overall Design of the Year Champagne Gosset Célébris 1998 Gift Box Few can match the expertise of the Champenois when it comes to successful marketing and packaging techniques. So it comes as little surprise that Champagne Gosset’s Célébris gift box is the second prestige cuvée sparkler to take top prize in the Wine & Spirit Design Awards. Where previous winner Veuve Clicquot
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La Grande Dame majored on slick portability and strong use of colour, Gosset has gone for the unmistakable stamp of luxury and just the merest whiff of kitsch. The bottle shape and idiosyncratic label remain quintessentially Gosset, but the cylindrical leather gift box is a new departure. The casket boasts a pearl-effect leatherette
finish and – its USP – funky sliding shutters held in place by an engraved clasp depicting the Gosset house monogram. Claimed by Gosset as an exact reproduction of an ancestral Gosset bottle found in an Australian shipwreck from 1841, the combination of bottle and casket was a winner with nearly all of our judges on the big day. For David Williams, the package was “spot-on” for its “ladies who lunch” target market. “Very luxury, very handbag,” he enthused. Jamie Stephenson, meanwhile, praised the design’s “beautiful retro chic”, while for Cheng Loo, the “great range of packaging and colours” were the deciding factor. “Love the bottle!” she added. Meanwhile, the “unique design and premium feel” delighted Carl Gobie, who added that the design met the brief “to the letter”. Indeed, the only dissenting voice came from Michael Rowe, for whom the kitsch factor was just a little too strong. Criticising the graphics as “not great”, he suggested an alternative use for that casket: “Poodle transporter!”
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trophy winners design & packaging
Best Wine Morandé Pionero If Chilean wine has come a long way in the past 15 years, so has wine design in general. The concept behind Morandé Pionero – easy-to-understand wines with a clear point of origin – is captured in a clean, fairly minimalist label that uses colour sparingly, but to good effect.
Best Fortified Graham’s Tawny range Two in a row for port producer Symington Family Estates and Graham’s – last year Graham’s The Tawny took this prize, while this time around the judicious redesign of its aged tawny range won the day. “Distinctive” was a word commonly bandied about by the judges here, who praised the clearly branded design and differentiated label shape.
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Best Wine Range Virgin house wines Some successful designs centre on a single, deceptively simple device for their effectiveness. Such a design is agency Dare!’s concept for Virgin Wines’ house red and white, using an ingenious label cutout to convey a clear message. Add a clean, uncluttered look and eloquent branding, and the result is a trophy winner.
trophy winners design & packaging
Best Range and Best Overall Spirit Bowmore Islay Single Malt Bowmore’s new look reflects a perceptible shift up-market for the single malt in the past few years, culminating in this uncluttered, modern and fairly radical packaging rethink. For Carl Gobie, the key was a clean overall look, matched by a distinctive feel for each of the different age statements – with the 25 Year Old a particular standout.
Best White Spirit Boru Vodka No drinks category is as style-conscious as vodka, making the genesis of a new package potentially problematic. But the redesign of Ireland’s Boru Vodka works by mapping Celtic motifs and imagery onto the template of a classic back-bar bottle – clean, clear and minimalist. The judges loved its tactile sense of sophistication.
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Best Dark Spirit Glengoyne Burnfoot Another strong performance from Ian Macleod Distillers, who took the overall award last year with single Islay malt Smokehead. Burnfoot, a travel retail exclusive, successfully marries hi-tech and heritage – using the original name of the Glengoyne distillery alongside modern GPS satellite graphics on an eye-catching carton and bottle combination.
The wine bunch Your Job, making great wine. Ours, protecting and making it unforgettable. Encouraged by the experience of great international winemakers, GlobalCap® has developed a wide range of unrivalled closures exclusively for wine: Divinum®, WAK®, TOPP®‚ have been designed utilizing the most recent technological advancements to ensure sealing integrity, high speed reliability and decorative excitement.
Barabino & Partners Design
GlobalCap® the certain leader in the closure business worldwide, producing more than 5-billion aluminum closures a year for the most demanding customers on the Planet.
screwcaps and wine closures www.globalcap-wineclosures.com www.gualaclosures.com - info@gualaclosures.com
trophy winners design & packaging
Best Innovation WAK aluminium wine closure GlobalCap’s new take on screwcap is aimed at consumers who find the regular closure’s appearance a bit cheap and cheerful. The premise is simple enough: make a screwcap look more like a traditional overcap – but it was the execution that won over the judges, with David Williams praising WAK as being “comfortable and easy to use”.
Design Agency of the Year Dare! The Leeds-based agency retains its title after another year of notable successes, not least a trophy for its Virgin house wines design. The judges awarded a second gold for Kingsland Wine & Spirits’ Starlight Coast, as well as no fewer than seven silvers and a bronze – outstripping Dare!’s total of eight medals and seals of approval from last year.
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medal winners design & packaging
Gold winners
Berneroy Calvados range Camus Cognac
Key product entered by
Starlight Coast Dare!
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February 2008
The London Gin Gonzรกlez Byass
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Loredona Pinot Grigio 2006 DFV Wines
Estoras Blaufränkisch Esterhazy Wein
Misterio Finca Flichman
Lunate Merlot/Nero d’Avola Glasmeyer Jung Schreiter
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medal winners design & packaging
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2003 by Bollinger Metzendorff
Blandy’s Madeira range Madeira Wine Co
Santa Julia Viognier Thierry’s
Mandarine Napoléon Reserve Imperiale Fourcroy
February 2008
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medal winners
Silver winners
Alexander Sky Distilleria Bottega
The Old Malt Cask Douglas Laing
Ledaig 10 Years Burn Stewart Distillers
Camus Extra Elegance Camus Cognac
Mest Raki Mey Içki San ve Tic
The Wild Geese range Protégé International
Morandé Reserva Viña Morandé
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medal winners design & packaging
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Vistamar Sepia range Vi単a Vistamar
Vistamar Vi単a Vistamar
Opala D&D Wines
Fern Bay Dare!
Champs du Moulin Dare!
Mirabello Dare!
Il Cascinone Dare!
The Plume Dare!
Azura Dare!
February 2008
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1489 Dare!
Gnarly Head DFV Wines
El Circulo Joven Free Run Wines
La Nature Pinot Grigio & Sangiovese Glasmeyer Jung Schreiter
Osborne Solaz Glasmeyer Jung Schreiter
Sanctuary Sauvignon Blanc 2007 The New Zealand Wine Company
FrozĂŠ Off-Piste Wines
The Florita Negociants UK
Couture by Stormhoek Stormhoek Winery
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medal winners design & packaging
Bronze winners
Glenfiddich range Lewis Moberly
Morande Edicion Limitada Viña Morandé
Yali Winemaker’s Selection Dare!
Gestos Finca Flichman
La Chablisienne La Chablisienne
Budgens Wine Range Martin Dawe Brand Design
Pink Elephant Nightingale Austen Designs
Inycon Fiano, Rosé, Shiraz Enotria World Wines
Tempus Two Copper Range McGuigan Simeon WInes
Pena De Pato Lewis Moberly
Highly commended Collison’s White Gold Distell
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February 2008
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