It isn't often that one feels compelled to give a shout out to a French wine company for innovation in label design. That field is a forte of New World regions such as Australia and, more recently, British Columbia, where Vancouver's Brandever Strategy Inc. came up with such innovative branding as the ticker-tape label for Laughing Stock and the elegant white look of Dirty Laundry.
But I've got to hand it to Bouchard Père & Fils, the large Burgundy house, for its recent facelift. Suddenly the bottles stand out clearly and elegantly on the shelves, reflecting an aesthetic more in sync with the liquid inside.
Sad to say, but sometimes a wine's drab, overly familiar packaging can cause the eyes to glaze over. There, I've admitted it, and if you were being honest I think you would, too. It had been a while since I salivated at the prospect of uncorking one of the several under-$30 wines from Bouchard Père, a house that also makes several super-rare Grand Crus costing $100-plus. Not because of my regard for the producer, which has only grown considerably over the past decade, but because of the ho-hum labels.
When fans of Burgundy (and I'm one) get thirsty, the tendency sometimes is to look past the clutter of the big brands such as Bouchard Père, Jadot, Boisset, Latour and Drouhin. Those names make many great wines, but Burghounds - to borrow the handle used by the great U.S. Burgundy expert Allen Meadows - tend to be, shall we say, elitist. Size matters as long as that size is small. And labels matter as long as few others have seen or heard of them. Burgundy buffs are the annoying indie-music geeks of the wine world. If you've heard of a wine, they will declare it lame.
So how does a big winery scent the trail again for elitist Burghounds? Clearly, yellow kangaroos and novelty names like Fat Bastard are out of the question. But here's an idea: Redesign your labels to look, uncannily, like those of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. For those who don't buy wine at auction, DRC is Burgundy's most expensive and revered house, with wines costing as much as $2,000 a bottle on release. It also has one of the most iconic and elegant label designs in the world: a simple, unforgettable typeface against a white background.
First, a disclaimer. Bouchard Père's stated intention was not to copy DRC. It based its typeface and minimalist design on antique labels from its own century-old cellar collection. Yet to me the new look evokes the vaunted DRC, with its clean, prominent appellation designations, such as La Tache and Grands Echezeaux.
The subtle but effective re-launch follows, more importantly, Bouchard Père's completion of a $12-million (U.S.) cellar with the latest equipment to make grapes feel like they're about to be treated to a day at the spa. There's a gravity-flow system instead of mechanical pumps for moving juice without "bruising" it, 12 sorting tables to weed out bad berries, an array of small-batch fermenting vats and about 3,500 oak barrels costing $1,000 apiece to soften and add complexity to the wines.
Joseph Henriot of the eponymous champagne house, who bought Bouchard Père in 1995, has ramped up quality significantly. But until now his labels had been the equivalent of a Chevy Lumina body on a Mercedes chassis.
I hope the new packaging draws a bigger audience to the worthy wine pictured here, Bouchard Père & Fils La Vignee Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2007 ($17.95 in Ontario, product No. 605667). Medium-bodied, this bright, happy red shows textbook pinot character, with a core of cherry-like flavour, slightly silky texture and juicy acidity on the finish. Very impressive pinot for the money from the grape's homeland of Burgundy and a versatile red that should work especially well with salmon.
