the brief
R Kohls Winery is rooted in the Monticello wine region of Virginia, with estate-grown grapes and traditional methods. They wanted a label that said so.
The brief was heritage — not a modern reinterpretation of it.
R Kohls Wines
Branding & Packaging 2023 R Kohls Winery
"Heritage, engraved."
Label design for a vineyard in the foothills of Virginia — a label built to carry heritage and tradition rather than trend.
a closer look
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the tricky bit
Traditional wine labels are a well-defined language: engraved illustration, classical type, a lot of small print. Get one detail wrong and it looks like a costume.
And it still has to be legible on a shelf, in a shop, at a glance.
what I did
A fine engraved landscape of the estate, an ornamental border, and a classical serif with the name in deep burgundy. The typographic ornaments and the tasting note are set the way old labels set them — small, dense, confident.
The name and the vintage are the only two things sized to be read from a distance. Everything else rewards picking the bottle up, which is exactly what you want it to do.