Wine by Design: Artists Create Wine Labels

Wine by Design Artists Create Wine Labels
At Hemingway's, a specialty store in southwest Columbia, there are dozens of wine racks and more bottles of wine than any customer could count.

With so many varieties, choosing is often a matter of visual appeal, says Dawn Vaughn, owner of Hemingway's. Vaughn says that customers often base their selection solely on the label's appearance.

"They'll purchase a wine without knowing what it tastes like," Vaughn says.

Writer and wine consultant Doug Frost is one of three people in the world to hold both the titles of master sommelier and master of wine. He says that wine labels need to be more than the successful combination of art and vintage.

"First, a wine label has to attract attention," Frost says. "Second, it needs to inform. It needs to tell potential customers what to expect from the wine."

The pairing of a creative label and a unique wine is the idea behind a recently released series of wines from winery Les Bourgeois. The winery recently uncorked the new Collector's Series, three new wines featuring winning artwork from their annual label design competition. Les Bourgeois has released a new Collector's Series every year since the contest began in 1998.

The Collector's Series is considered the highest-end wine produced at Les Bourgeois, and it is the only wine for which the labels change significantly.