An innovative label

How many times after drinking a good bottle of wine didn't you think you should make a note of this wine to remember its name and buy it again? By the time you find a piece of paper and a pen you already thought of something more important or urgent to do and you forget. How frustrating when you look for your next bottle of wine and the name of this great wine escapes you!

That's why I loved the post of thedieline.com blog on an innovative packaging: a tear-off tab to retain all the useful bits of information about the wine. It can be put on the back label to keep a pretty front label.




One more word about thedieline.com blog: it is a very interesting site on packaging in every industry with a strong section on the wine, spirits and beverage industry. A site to keep in mind!

Nutrition facts on the label: the consumers' opinion

Label... Label... On such a small space, so important to the wine brand, legislators and consumers agree on stuffing more and more information. Tina Caputa writes in Winesnadvines.com : "A newly released survey indicates that American consumers support the inclusion of detailed alcohol content information on wine, beer and spirits labels. The survey was commissioned by Shape Up America!, an organization founded by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop to raise awareness of the health effects of obesity."

"A strong majority (92%) of those surveyed", continues Tina Caputo, "ranked the amount of alcohol in each drink as the top priority for required labeling information, followed by the amount of calories (84%), carbohydrates (75%), fat (71%) and protein (66%)."

Read more of Tina's article.
Learn more about the survey of Shape up America!

Labeling and new laws on labels?

Labels are a very important part of branding: a label will help a wine stand out among the hundreds of bottles displayed on the shelves in a supermarket or a wine store. They also have a very important legal function: every winery is supposed to print warnings on health and wine consumption, alcohol content, origins, place of bottling.

The legal requirements of the TTB are already numerous but might be reinforced. After 30 years of deliberations, the federal regulators have proposed requiring the alcoholic-beverage industry, i.e. wine, beer and spirits, to put nutrition and alcohol-content facts on the labels. The point that is rubbing is the alcohol-by-volume statement required by the TTB. Consumers currently have no standardized information on calories, ingredients, or alcohol in a serving of beer, wine or spirit. If the regulation is applied, wine producers will have to print a nutrition fact per serving on the label. It implies new costs as well as loos of quality in the art work that most labels have become.

How I ended up writing a book on Wine Brands

In spite of an Anglo-Saxon name, I'm mostly French. Born and raised in Paris, France, I spent the first 20 years of my life speaking French and learning English. I'm not very gifted for foreign languages! After a lot of efforts, some years in the USA and more trips to California and other American states, in the last two decades I came to a reasonable level of mastering English.

Being a writer in French, I thought about a book on Web Marketing and Wine Brands. Several French publishers expressed their interest on Web Marketing and E-Commerce but were more inclined towards technical tips than a reflection on marketing wine brands through the Web.

Then good news: Palgrave-Macmillan liked my proposal. Bad news: I had to write in English. Up to that time I had written only short articles. Suddenly I had to write a full book. After a panic attack and a few sleepless nights, I came to terms with my new status as an American writer: just consider every chapter as an article and get to work!

What I want to share with you, readers and potential readers, is the behind-the-scene story of 15 years in Web marketing wine and the writing of a book on a very controversial subject: wine brands.