New design for Cotes de Provence rosé wines

Chateau d’Esclans Domaines Sacha Lichine Cotes de Provence Rosé has been gaining greater critical acclaim with every vintage and, with it, global commercial success. For the first vintage in 2006, just 120,000 bottles were produced but by 2011 demand saw production grow to 750,000 bottles.

The Chateau introduced new bottles and label designs for its two higher end wines, Les Clans and Garrus to the world of travel retail at the TFWA exhibition in Cannes this autumn. Design Bridge, the world’s largest independently owned package design firm headquartered in London with offices in Singapore, executed the redesign.

The agency explained that the first order in this process was to create something truly original and, in keeping with the status of the two wines, to cast an eye towards coming up with a bespoke bottle, something unusual, in the wine business.

The labels are hand crafted to reflect the quality and attention to detail and the bottles designed to create a frame around the labels making them highly compatible with one another.

The bottles themselves are elongated, elegant yet masculine giving them a look and feel of substance and gravitas. At the top of the bottles are two details – a crest on the neck and a lip at the top of the bottle both of which speak luxury. This becomes particularly evident once a sommelier cuts off the top of the capsules and the glass lip detail is revealed.

Some inspiration comes from the Champagne category, which is extremely appropriate for these wines given how festive they look in an ice bucket. The capsules’ colours are subdued bearing the hand crafted lettering from the labels. The style is classic and the colour scheme is of steely minerality, a characteristic which can be equated to the wines. This coupled with how they contrast to the pale pink rosé in the bottle, the design agency describes as giving a feeling of tension similar to that of a sports car making the overall design look quite striking.

Chateau d’Esclans’ wines are exported to 63 countries worldwide

2 December 2013 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor