Transcript: Wine Labels [Halloween Edition] Can we judge a wine by it's label?

- Hi there and welcome to another incredibly provocative version of the Lucky Rock Wine Lounge.

- Sup.

- I am Jesse, I was recently in the vineyard. That's why I'm wearing my vineyard shoes and my desert storm camos to protect me from deer attack.

- And I'm Aaron Candyman Inman. Today, we're going to talk about spooky wine packaging. All right so, some of you might remember during the height of the Rona, when we started the Lucky Rock Wine Lounge under a different name, Cellar Rats into Sellar Rats. We did an episode, before we had these lovely mustard colored couches here called Wine Labels, Judging a Package By its Cover. It was very popular, 42 people like and subscribed.

- Thank you, mom.

- We really appreciate that. And we talked a little bit about wine packaging and Jesse's going to actually go into that a little bit more.

- Yeah, basically. Do the carpets match the drapes?

- Whoa.

- That's not quite right. Does the packaging match the wine? Is quality meet quality? Just because it looks good doesn't mean it was worth buying.

- All right so, this is that time where we ask you to like and subscribe or don't, we don't care.

- Yes, we do.

- We do. So we're kind of doing wine packaging 2.0 today, except we're doing it with Halloween spooky theme. Because what we did is we picked a couple of wines that we were drawn to the packaging based off of them actually liking them. And then we picked some that we were drawn to them because we actually hated them or strongly disliked, I tell my children not to say the word hate.

- [Jesse] That's right.

- So we're not going to use it here.

- So, let's dive in, let's just make sure the pool is not three feet deep. All right so, Aaron picked a couple of wines. I picked a couple of wines, one we loved, one we didn't love so much. And then I think I picked another one just in case Aaron didn't love anything.

- So this wine is called Paetra. I had to look that up because it's spelled a little interestingly P-A-E-T-R-A, Paetra. I have had this wine one other time. It's a Riesling from Willamette Valley. I picked it up last time because I really thought the label was kind of striking. And I just liked the high contrast of the black spider with kind of the opaque.

- [Jesse] Pretty spooky.

- Right? And then this, it made a lot of sense for this episode because it was fairly spooky.

- Yeah.

- It is a black widow, I believe. So you're not gonna get a lot of information from the label. It's really just, it has what I like to call it, pick up ability. And then there's an information on the back, you know, it's a 2019 Riesling Willamette Valley. This costs about 20 bucks. So it's right in the wheelhouse for a well-made wine from the states.

- [Jesse] Yeah.

- And I did like that it's also a screw cap. Let's give it a little tasty taste. Gary V there.

- I don't know who that is.

- Me either, just picked a name out of a hat.

- You know the story on this wine is kind of, it's a younger guy, I say younger, he's probably our age, so I think that's younger.

- He used to be young. You know, you never know these days. And he studied in Germany. So he actually was in wine sales.

- [Jesse] I love France.

- [Man] We have the country of Asia.

- [Interviewer] No, that's a continent, that's Russia.

- [Man] Oh, oops. South Africa, beautiful. And he went to Germany, trained, came back, was looking in the U.S. for places to do some Riesling, dry style, so no sugar, and settled on Willamette Valley.

- Yeah man, it's dry.

- And it's a bone dryer.

- Has a little bit of effervescence, minerality, it's clean. I don't... They're hit or miss in America, the Rieslings. And I think this is a decent representation.

- Yeah, I think it's pretty tasty. And when I drink Rieslings, I tend to like them dryer or dry bone dry. And this one kind of hits on all those pillars for me, so.

- Yeah, this will definitely attract you, if you're looking for a label at the spot, you know, I call it the white label of death if everything looks the same, it's got a white label. It's like, this has got a big spider on it.

- So yeah, in this instance, does the packaging, does the drapes match the curtains?

- I think you only get to say that once an episode.

- But no, on this one, I think the packaging matches the wine quality. It's got pick up ability and I think it's a solid a well-made Riesling, if you like a dry style.

- Yep, agreed. Okay, let's see. What's next. So now we're onto wine two already, I know this is going so fast.

- [Jesse] Two?

- Wine two! And this is Jesse's pick, so I'm going to let him jibber jabber about it.

- Yup well, which I will, this is McClenney Mannequin by Orin Swift and it's funny cause Aaron, I ran into Aaron in the wine shop and I was like, Hey Aaron if you can't find one, what do you think about this one? And all three of the, I think three of the wines I pointed out to him were all Orin Swift wines, which this is because they have very distinct labels. I think mannequins typically are creepy, especially when they have lipstick on them.

- Yeah those ones are a little beat up. They're a little bit like post-apocalyptic.

- So it's a blend of, I think three-ish regions. It's Napa, Sonoma and I think it said, I think it said San Lucia Highlands.

- So that's eight.

- [Teacher] You're bad at math, but I'm giving you an A+ in confidence.

- [Morty] Just doing what I got to do.

- I think their website said 35 bucks and we picked it up for about 30 bucks. So anyway, we'll see how she goes here. This has all of his wines are very pick up ability because they're all very striking labels. He kind of re-invented the way Americans saw wine labels. Cause he was doing stuff that people normally would never put on a wine label. And so a lot of people mimicked him there on out.

- Yeah I think I've always, Jesse and I tend to skew like a little bit spooky wine label anyway. If you put some cool skull, we'll see a not cool skull later, or like a cool spider or others that we're going to pick it up. That's just kind of our genre. And so, Orin Swift wines have always had massive pick up ability for me because the wine is good. It's very creamy. It's very buttery.

- [Jesse] Oakey buttery.

- Oakey buttery, kind of like what you would think from like, I think what a lot of people, maybe cliche-ly, think of California Chardonnay. So maybe it's a little overdone for me. So, it's the label.

- Yeah and it's like, if you're going to pay 35 bucks for a bottle of wine, you want it to be substantial. And so a lot of people were like, you know, they make their wines a little extra heavy. It's not an accident in America. You know it's kinda like that Cadillac with the bullhorns in the front. You get a 30 ounce steak.

- Oh yeah. I pulled one up in the driveway.

- That's right.

- Yeah, I think it's, there's a lot of match there. Message match.

- But it made me pick it up. Good job, Orin Swift once again.

- So Jesse is the middle child. So we're going to let him do two in a row, as you do.

- Yeah, this one's Vampiré. Vampire in Spanish. It's California Merlot. I think this was 20 bucks-ish. They are really drinking that proverbial Kool-Aid when it comes to the vampire thing. Cause they have like one called Dracula. They have Dracula Chocolate have a couple of other things.

- They sell this at Spirit Halloween store. Get it while it's open. It closes on November 1st.

- Yeah and they did their website was a little bit rough around the edges and that's being nice.

- The packaging's fairly dumb.

- It's yeah, and that's what made me pick it up. I was like, well, if I'm going for spooky, that is dumb.

- Spooky in name.

- I mean, there's a certain, you know, I think when we did the judge a book by its cover, the one I hated the most grandma was like, "I like it."

- Yeah, so we weren't the target market.

- Yeah. All right, let's get into this Vampiré.

- Vampiré

- I mean, it smells like Merlot, like kind of chippy, wood chippy, cheaper Merlot.

- Yeah and it said something about Napa on there, but this is California, so I don't know if they've changed the vineyards or if there's a different vintage or whatever, but.

- The lack luster packaging kind of matches the wine.

- Yeah, it's okay.

- It finishes a little bit like a, like a Cedar wood deck, you know like that kind of like just very Cedary.

- Cedar .

- No, no, no, I haven't had one of those in weeks.

- I mean, I wouldn't say knocks it out of the park, but you know, if the package got ya and you love Merlot and you feel like spending 20 bucks.

- You happen to be a vampire.

- You happen to be a vampire.

- Drinking this at night, obviously.

- In front of a mirror like, oh look floating glass! Spooky!

- Yeah, someone has to invite you in in order to have a glass. Anyway, so that's that. So Aaron picked this one and I love it from the get-go.

- I picked this one cause I kind of hated it. I mean disliked it, strongly disliked it.

- I don't know, I love like 1994 clip art.

- Yeah it looked like, I don't know. It's just so, I think earlier I said, we love like spooky labels in general, you can get us with a skull and a spider and stuff, but this just, I don't know, to me,

- [Jesse] it's not trying hard enough, I think.

- Not trying hard enough. And I'm a big fan of like kind of vertical labels in a lot of ways and this one's like, there's a lot going on. It's like, here's this, here's this, here's this, here's this. And this wine's really interesting. We didn't talk about scores or anything with any of the other ones. But I think it's notable on this one that this wine has gotten as low as 81 and as high as 95, depending on who's rating it. Which is really polarizing.

- [Jesse] Quite the span, yeah.

- And they put a nice, cheesy looking gold, Decanter logo right here. So I got the impression looking this up, that it's a pretty large winery in Spain. This wine is from Spain.

- And it looks like Jumilla.

- Jumilla.

- That's the region.

- The region. Monastrell once again, which is mourvèdre, polarizing scores. Didn't love the label, called Time Waits for No One. We're gonna give it a shot.

- Hmm. It's interesting.

- It's definitely not bad.

- I don't know why the polarization was there between the 95 and the 81, you know?

- Sure. The nose is kind of moot, but it's spicy, better like a little spice.

- Yeah and that's typical of mourvèdre. It's got some spicy notes and mourvèdre can be a very hard grape to produce. So yeah, to me, this wine is tasty, especially honestly, this was only $12.

- Would you say the wine is better than the label?

- Certainly.

- This is an instance where the wine is better than the label.

- Hmm.

- For me.

- Interesante.

- For a guy that did not like the label. All right, so now we're coming up on wine five already. It's gone fast. It's been like a speeding train through labeling.

- I've had a hoot myself.

- Yeah it's been a good time. So we're going to finish off with Jesse's pick up ability wine.

- Yeah so, this one I think is the spookiest of them all.

- I would agree with that, yeah.

- [Jesse] This one's called Palermo. That's a place in Sicily.

- [Aaron] Yeah.

- So this is Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa and they say it's like a classic cab. I'll be the judge of that.

- And a classic cab of Napa for 45/50 bucks, that's unbelievable.

- We got it for obviously right here,

- 45.99, but they sell it on their website for around 55 bucks. But a lot of the wines are hard to get, so.

- It's that pick up ability.

- It is, these, I mean they, they're printing cash with wine and Orin Swift again, typically does not hold back when it comes to bigness of wines.

- It's tasty, yeah. But when he says that they tend to be highly extracted, high alcohol, mouthfuls.

- Yeah and the bigger the tannin cause tannins start to bind together over time, the bigger the tannin, the molecule, the softer it feels in your mouth because it sits in the receptor in your mouth and it kind of takes up more real estate and the more real estate it takes up the softer it feels.

- You can check out our chilling red wine episode for a little cruise through how tannins change with temperature.

- [Jesse] That's right. So I would say on this one, the quality of the label, which I think I like the label a lot matches the quality of the wine. I agree, yep. And it's intriguing, I mean the classic Napa cab in like build, but the label is not what I would say is most traditional.

- And speaking of packaging, it's important to us at Lucky Rock because we've always been a big fan of our own package. Wink! And it recently got our canned wine, won international. I believe that is the

- [Jesse] entire world.

- I believe that's the whole country, at least. It won the international canned wine competition, canned packaging.

- I actually, I think it's the entire universe.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- So, we learned a lot today who knew that such a corny topic, spooky wine would lead into such a prospecting of marketing.

- That's right.

- But that's what we do here, just peel back the onion layers.

- That's right. We're innovating. Well de-innovating.

- Technically network. All right so, let's do a little recap, what we thought of these. So Paetra, I thought it matched, the quality of the wine matched the price and the packaging very well.

- [Jesse] Yeah.

- All right and this one?

- I would say carpets match the drapes. I mean, outside of the label, which is also literally very big, the bottles heavy, the wine's heavy actually, whether it was intentional or not it's I think, matches.

- Yeah, for sure. All right. Wine three, Vampiré.

- I would say par for the course, you know? So-so on the label, so-so on the wine. You got what you paid for.

- Yeah. Matchy, matchy. Alright. Wine number four. And then we get to our first, what would you call this?

- Contrarian wine?

- Contrarian wine? Sure. We'll go with that.

- Anomaly?

- I'll look up contrarian after this. Wine I liked, label I don't like.

- Yeah. I think the label is hmm, but then again, I have a propensity towards 1994 clip art. Yeah. I don't, I don't hate the label, but it's no es mi favorito. Nice. Russian.

- [Actor] I don't know if you know this, but I don't speak Russian!

- All right and the fifth and final, what do we think of this one?

- The old Palermo, they used to call me that in prison. That's not true.

- Matchy, match again?

- Yeah, I'd say match, match. Again, Orin Swift's kind of knocks it out of the park when it comes to packaging, heavy package, heavy wine, pick up ability, spooky AF!

- It was a tasty wine and I also think for the price Napa Valley cab 50 bucks.

- It's, it's what you, if you want a "slutty" cab from Napa, that's a pretty good price, totally.

- All right, so I think we learned a lot today about how the packaging can match the wine or not. And we had some favorites, some least favorites. I decided to write out the conclusion of this episode with the Willamette Valley Riesling. Love the packaging, loved the wine.

- And I went with the cabernet from Orin Swift Napa Valley, because same, same, same, same, but different.

- Same, cheers!

- Cheers.