Valdrinal’s labels caught our eye

As Barcelona Wine Week 2020 comes to a close, one of the things that grabbed our attention most during the event, aside from the delicious wines, cavas, etc., was the wine labels. If you’re not a wine expert, you probably don’t have much to go on in terms of picking a bottle of wine at your local liquor store or supermarket. So how to choose? In terms of our own experience, and after talking with various exhibitors at BWW 2020, typically the wine label is one of the biggest factors in making a decision.

Nowadays, there are so many great wines available, and wineries are looking to wine label design to help set them apart. Thus, our mission over the three-day event was to pick out our favorite label designs and find out the stories behind them.

Without further ado, here are our five favorites (in no particular order):

1. Bodega San Valero‘s Celebrities (Cariñena)
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   • Bodega San Valero made the creative choice of setting up a professional photo shoot, renting clothes, hiring models, in order to get classic celebrity-esque photos. They then photographed the chosen photos with the grapes from each type of wine on top of the models’ heads to be used as unique labels for the corresponding wines in the their “Celebrities” collection.
2. Grup Oliveda‘s Ullones (Empordà)
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   • Grup Oliveda decided to use this painting from Twinsisters (Carme and Francesca Jutglar), artists and actual twin sisters, who paint women with large heads and huge eyes. The name of this wine “Ullones,” or “Big Eyes,” is directly inspired by the sisters’ painting. They have another wine, “Ulls Negres,” or “Black Eyes,” that is also inspired by another of the sisters’ paintings.
3. Bodega Vadrinal‘s Vadrinal 24 (Ribera del Duero)
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   • Bodega Vadrinal’s David Cuellar was inspired by his family for the “Tradition Wine” collection and, because of this, wanted to use photos of the hands of his family members as the wine labels; their hands are involved in every step of the wine making process. This particular bottle, Vadrinal 24, depicts his grandmother’s hands.
4. Bodega Valdehermoso‘s Sotavento (Rueda)
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   • In Nava del Rey, they have extremely strong winds, so strong that it’s sometimes necessary to grab on to something nearby so you don’t get knocked over or fly away. With that in mind, the name and the illustration are inspired by this phenomenon, and David Aguado got the name of the eventual designer, Carlos Pau, from a client. The rest is history!
5. Celler Aixalà i Alcait‘s Destrankis (Priorat)
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   • The Destrankis collection from Celler Aixalà i Alcait plays on the Catalan word “destranquis,” which means something illegal but hidden from view. The reason for deciding on this word is tied to the origins of their wine. They began by making their wine at their home, so they’re toying with the idea of bootlegging, so to speak. The fun part is that Jordi Aixalà wasn’t planning on naming the wine this way until his niece told him he didn’t have the guts to do it, and he said that if his nephew, Roger, who is a tattoo artist named “Mikro,” designed the artwork, he would name the wine “Destrankis.” Well, you can see how that story panned out!

There were lots of other creative and eye-catching wine labels this week, but, unfortunately, we didn’t have the privilege of investigating them all. We will have to wait for next year’s BWW to see what there is in store!

Until next time! Cheers!

By EMILY BENSON

Photos by ISABEL TROYA

Published by carrersbcn

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