Honest Wines Matkovic

Agency: Señor
Creative director, Copywriter: Vanja Blumenšajn
Designer: Miro Čavar
Branding consultant: Iva Kaligarić
Photographer: Mario Kučera
Project photos: Maja Danica Pečanić
Client: Matković vinery
Country: Croatia

Thousands of Croatian winemakers struggle for their audience. How to uniquely position and introduce Matković wines using only marketing tools of a family business?
Thinking: Matković wines are produced with care using high quality grapes, they are fair-priced and undeceiving in communication. Honesty best describes the way Matković family approaches their business.

Solution: Honest wine.

It’s not just a business. Our days are made of hundreds of beautiful and difficult moments that make us proud of the wines we created for all the honest, human moments you will experience drinking them. Without big words, colorful labels and shiny ads, to us, this is life – true devotion to making great wines. Maybe that is the reason Matković wines have this strange power. They inspire some small, unspoken truths, that are, just like the wines, hard to share.

Wrapping paper conceals the bottles… Once unwrapped bottles reveal small, unspoken truths on the labels.

Honesty was integrated in all of the elements of the brand and communication (winery name, web address, packaging…). And not just declaratory; messages on the labels, photos from their wineyards on the wrapping paper and family’s relationship with the customers – everything is honest.

TRANSLATION (labels)
“Pinot noir made me tipsy so I told her I loved her and gave her the last bite of my steak.”

“We finished a bottle of cabernet franc. I hugged my old man. Maybe it’s time I forgive him – he did the best he could.”

“My girlfriend is a bit shy, but when she drinks chardonnay, she does things that make me blush.”

“She leaves tomorrow. Still, I buried my face in her lap and wished the morning would never come. I blame sirocco and frankovka barrique.”

“Frankovka stain on my beige dress reminds me of you. While we were running towards your apartment, I wonder has it occurred to you that the glass didn’t just happen to fall.”

“You said we can be friends. I took a sip of sylvaner and imagined what life would be like if we never met.”