Monthly Archives: November 2010

Piper-Heidsieck Champagne Brand For Sale

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Rémy Cointreau has put its Piper-Heidsieck and Charles Heidsieck Champagne brands up for sale in a deal which could raise as much as 450 million euros. Possible suitors for the brands include other drinks conglomerates such as Diageo and Pernod Ricard but a private equity group could also snap up the champagne seller.

Decanter reports that Piper has never been profitable in the 20 years that Rémy Cointreau has owned it. While Piper president Anne-Charlotte Amory has spent the past few years trying to build the brand, the global recession chipped away at sales and the brand cut 45 jobs earlier this year.

By Deidre Woollard | Source :: www.luxist.com

Twitter’s Fledging Wine

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If you just can't get enough Twitter now you can enjoy it in a whole new form: wine. Appropriately called Fledgling the label is a collaboration between Twitter and Crushpad in Napa Valley and launched with two vintages: a 2009 Chardonnay and a 2009 Pinot Noir. I haven't tried them yet myself but according to Slashfood the Pinot is pretty good.

Perhaps the best part of this whole Twitter wine endeavor is that The Fledgling Initiative sends $5 of every bottle sold to the non-profit organization Room to Read, which makes literacy and educational programs available to children around the world and for The Fledgling Initiative specifically in Uttarakhand, India. Fledgling Wine is currently only available online for $25/bottle or $300/case, and you can stay abreast of the latest news by following the brand on Twitter at @fledgling.

By Rigel Celeste | Source :: www.luxist.com

Bottle of Cheval Blanc Sets New Auction Record

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The International Business Times reports that a massive imperial-size bottle of Cheval Blanc 1947 has set a new world record for a single bottle sold at auction. The bottle (which hold the equivalent of eight standard sized bottles) was found in the secret cellar of a wine collector.

It sold for $304,580 on Tuesday at the fine wine auction at Christie's in Geneva. Just last month the record for the most expensive wine bottle had been set in Hong Kong when three bottles of Châteaux Lafite-Rothschild 1869 sold at a Hong Kong auction by Sotheby's for an astounding hammer price of $232,692 a bottle (the Lafite-Rothschild is still the champ if you are measuring price per milliliter).

By Deidre Woollard | Source :: www.luxist.com

Chateau Lafite Rothschild Puts Chinese Symbol on Bottles

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We've heard a lot recently about the growing appetite for wine, especially French wine. Decanter reports that the 2008 vintage of Chateau Lafite Rothschild (the Luxist Awards winner for Best International Red Wine) will bear the Chinese symbol for the figure eight on the bottle. The symbol is in celebration of Chateau Lafite Rothschild's partnership with CITIC, China's largest state-owned investment company on the peninsula of Penglai in Shandong province, an area said to be China's Bordeaux.

A spokesperson for Lafite Rothschild commented that the "shape of the symbol seems to offer a perfect representation of the slopes of the vineyard and commemorates the launch of our Chinese wine project." The small symbol might also help the wine be even more popular in China, the figure eight is considered very auspicious. The Decanter article also mentions the speculation that Château Mouton-Rothschild may choose a Chinese artist to design the label for its 2008 vintage.

By Deidre Woollard | Source :: www.luxist.com

Gunter Grass Designs Wine Label

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Chateau Mouton Rothschild isn't the only wine label that commissions famous people to design its labels. Italy's Fattoria Nittardi has commissioned artists to design the labels of its Casanuova di Nittardi, a top Chianti Classico since 1981. This year's artist is Nobel-prize-winning author Gunter Grass. The 83-year-old author of the Tin Drum is also a sculptor and painter.

Decanter reports that his design includes a snail on a cluster of grapes for the label of te 2008 vintage of Casanuova di Nittardi, which goes on sale in November. Grass wrote a book in 1972, Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke, which translates to From the Diary of a Snail.

By Deidre Woollard | Source :: www.luxist.com

Sandtrap Wine

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A new wine from Tupelo. First drowning in water, now sinking in quicksand. A different approach was taken to the Tupelo wines, with an abstract molecular illustration of quicksand (instead of the photographic approach of the previous Tupelo wines). Sandy yellowed uncoated paper serves as the backing for this sketched piece done by Peta Kruger and Mash.

Design by Mash | Source :: Lovely Package

Burn Cottage Wines

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Something we’ve been looking forward to for a long time, the Burn Cottage wines have been released. The labels, thick uncoated stock with the branding imagery wrapping around the imported French glass, mirroring the poster cut up business cards. Oh, and the wine is just as tasty as the packaging.

Mash wanted to create a unique brand that communicated the ‘hands on’ characteristics with the sometimes mystical methods of this biodynamic winery. The founding father of biodynamics agriculture, Rudolf Steiner, was influenced by the writings of Von Goethe and in particular, ‘The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’ published in 1795. This is a story about the combining the ‘ideal human being’ in everyone with ‘outer life experiences’, the two working in harmony.

‘The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’ was the inspiration Mash needed. The various parts of the story have been put together to create an illustrated collage that forms the basis of the Burn Cottage brand imagery used in packaging, promotion and stationery.

Design by Mash | Source :: Lovely Package

E (Enigma) – Alpha, Box & Dice

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Sing the alphabet song, A B C D F, hang on something’s missing! Not anymore, Alpha Box and Dice have now released E (Enigma). Another letter in the ever increasing Alpha Box & Dice range of wines. One day the whole alphabet will exist. If you have the complete collection you can sell up and retire to the Bahamas as this preschool lesson will become more collectable than Mark Rothko’s Grade 3 art-class drawing.

Design by Mash | Source :: Lovely Package