|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
Our Label Art | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Our Estate wine labels are commissioned artworks by Dianne
Gardner of Port Orchard. When I first saw her work my attention
was immediately grabbed by her portraits. You can see more of her
work at her website:
http://www.gardnersart.com/.
Below are the pieces and their stories, in the order they were created.
Müller Thurgau
I asked Dianne to use our vineyard as the basis of an image for the
label and left it pretty much at that. The final piece was simply
a more thorough version of her initial piece -- although I didn't
really know what I wanted, she found it!
Madeleine Angevine
Upon finishing our second wine, I asked Dianne for another work in
the style established with the first piece both artistically and
thematically. With a little back-and-forth on the lovely lady (I
felt she had to have longer hair), we arrived fairly directly at
this image.
Ichigo
"Ichigo" is the Japanese word for strawberry -- with this release
we honored the Japanese/American strawberry farming heritage of
Bainbridge Island. As the wine is packaged in a narrow 500mL
bottle (click link above to see bottle photo), there was very
little room for detailed artwork. These constraints brought Dianne
to do this simple Sumi-styled strawberry.
Frambelle
This is a small bottle (same as Ichigo above) with very limited
space for artwork. "frambelle" is a made-up word combining the
French words for raspberry (framboise) and beautiful (belle). I
told Dianne about the wine and she provided exactly what was
needed, a beautiful cluster of raspberries.
Melon de Bourgogne
Our third white table wine was a longer time in coming as we had to
start by planting a vineyard, growing the grapes for 4 years, then
making the wine for a year... Dianne and I agreed that we should
continue with our "girl in the vineyard" theme. Dianne looked
through the PV website, and found a photo I had made a year or so
earlier of our vineyard, and she based this piece on that. I was
thrilled as I recognized the basis of the image immediately as
being my vineyard! As requested, she made the bare winter scene
into a much more attractive harvest scene.
Verjus
This is a small bottle (same a Ichigo above) with very limited
space for artwork. In the same vein as the Frambelle (above),
Dianne provided a cluster of grapes just as they look when ready
for use in verjus.
Magelica 2010
I asked Dianne if she could do an Angelica flower... The printing
on the label came out poorly, dark to almost black & white - in
the artwork the background is a deep rich purple.
Isletage 2012
Dianne brought the lovely models to the vineyard for the artwork.
As we used this artwork on a wine that is a blend of multiple
grapes, it works out really well that there are two lovely ladies
in this while all our others have just one.
Siegerrebe 2014
I appreciate the dark vineyard post area to the right, allowing the
label writing to be more clear. I also adore how she managed to
bring my row-end roses into this image.
Roseus 2019
I love how Dianne managed to bring together the old gnarled
vineyard post, yet keeping a mostly consistent color, as with the
Siegerrebe image, allowing the label writing to be more clear. I
also adore the row-end roses. The young lady holding the flowers
completes the image wonderfully.
Zweigelt 2023
The old-world feel of the vineyard just comes through, and again
the darker and consistent color to the right, allows the label
writing to be clear. Our lady in the vineyard is stunning in the
dark blue dress. |