We’ve all seen them – the wine-store zombies, staring glassy-eyed at the vast shop shelves filled with competing vintages. But what makes them finally decide to pluck a bottle from the racks?

Most buyers barely consider how labels inform their purchase, but the reality is that a good label is almost as important as what’s in the bottle. By obliquely referencing an aspect of the story of a wine’s production,  many of the new guard of wine-label designers are capturing the spirit of creativity expressed in contemporary winemaking in Australia.

Adelaide’s Mash works with both large and small wine producers, and creative director Dom Roberts spoke with InDaily Design about its take on labelling wine in today’s market.

Tell InDaily a little about Mash? Who are you guys?

Mash is the art-vertising emporium of everlasting beauty, seductive imagery and sunshine 366 days of the year. A disruptive creation tool of branding evangelism to break organisations out of their proverbial ruts. In other words, we are design and branding agency that has grown and morphed into something a little bit different. Although we have clients in a variety of industries, we predominantly work in the food and beverage area, whether that be publication and book design, branding, wine packaging, or interior design.

Mash was fathered and mothered by Dom Roberts and James Brown some 12 years ago. Since then we have grown from two or three designers to a team of eight or nine core people. We also collaborate with various photographers, artists and builders, building tailored dream teams to get the best for our clients and to make sure our vision and ideas are executed the way our minds intended.

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There are more and more illustrative labels, especially from the small to medium-sized brands. They are the ones at the cutting edge of wine packaging. I do think this may be changing, though. With the advent of “natural wines”, inventive typography and an artisan hand-made feel are big at the moment.

Your clients seem to tend towards the more boutique winemakers – why do you think these partnerships work?

We have a mixture of boutique winemakers and larger brands. For example, we are working with a very iconic large-volume McLaren Vale brand. We have worked for the likes of Pernod Ricard, Yalumba and Treasury Wines.

The beauty of the boutique producer is that they have a little more freedom than some of the bigger brands. Secondly, the smaller producer does not have the back-up marketing of the bigger brands. There’s no dedicated sales staff, press ad campaigns or major sports sponsorships for these guys, so their labels need to do a lot of work. Standing out on the shelf among the vast sea of competitors is vital; a standard label can spell disaster for the little guy. At the end of the day, though, large or small, it’s about communication, meeting the brief, coming up with cut-through ideas and then executing them well.

What are the advantages for wineries using more complex labelling when they could be potentially more expensive to produce?

Basically, we are called in to make our clients money. Using Mash and then executing our ideas in the correct way is an investment in their brand. It is something done to increase brand awareness and, in turn, increase sales. Quality packaging is key.  Obviously there are still ways to keep production costs in check and this is looked at on a project-by-project basis.

Can you speak about the development of the new labels for Adelina Wines?

Adelina is a boutique wine producer from the Clare Valley headed up by Colin and Jen McBride. We first worked with them around 2003/04 on their estate wines (a tissue-wrapped wine with renaissance-style imagery over a wax-dipped bottle). More recently, we have designed the packaging for their amazing non-estate wines. We get on really well with Colin and Jen, so we enjoyed talking about these new wines and what the labels should be (in between talking all things two wheels, as Colin and myself are self-confessed bike tragics).

We wanted to do something illustrative that was both unique and sophisticated, with perhaps a touch of something darker. We referenced different styles and in the end we decided on collage-style imagery. They are selling well and are on the pour at restaurants such as Press within a very short time from initial release.

The marketing of wines such as Alpha Box & Dice seems to be targeted toward a younger market – was this a direct decision by the winemaker?

It was more a case of doing something different – something that reflected the wines Alpha Box & Dice make, as well as the personality of winemaker Justin Lane. Alpha Box & Dice is all about breaking the wine-making rules and somehow making amazing wines in the process. So it may be that this way of approaching winemaking appeals to a younger market, but really it is about appealing to anyone who is tired of the same old Shiraz and Cab Sav and wants to venture into new grape varieties, blended and treated in ways to make new flavours. A bit like the Mad Hatter opened an ice-cream parlour.