Piquentum St. Vital 12/13/14 Collection

Creative Agency: STUDIO SONDA
Creative Directors: Sean Poropat, Jelena Fiskus
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Vinski podrum Buzet
Location: Vizinada, Croatia
Packaging Contents: Wine
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Paper label, Glass bottle

After the successful outcome of the label Sv.Vital 2014, designing the collection for three consecutive vintages is in a way a logical sequence. Given that only with a collection the difference between each year’s labels wholly comes to the fore, and the story about the importance of comparing different vintages is developed more clearly, with this collection that puts together the years 12/13/14, we have rounded off the message about the importance of understanding nature and how it influences products when these are not artificially treated.

The basic idea about the design of Piquentum Sv. Vital packaging lays on rising the awareness about the year of harvest denoted on the bottle and which often loses its meaning after using pesticides in the vineyard and balancing flavors in the cellars, since the latter become ready-made and unrelated to the actual weather conditions. Considering that Piquentum wines are produced in untreated vineyards and strive for respecting the cycles of true nature, their labels long not only to be decorative but educative as well. Thus it is how awareness about the importance of understanding the year denoted on the bottle can arise. In cooperation with the Meteorological Institute the data on weather conditions in the territory of vineyards were collected (2011 – 2015), while the amount of precipitation was used as a variable that can best show graphically the diversity of nature each year. Labels show the amount of precipitations in liters every month in a year of wine production. The indicated data start with October of the previous year and end with the month of harvest – September of the current year.

When labels are compared (as in the collection), wines of the years 2012, 2013 and 2014 clearly convey the reason why the year is featured on the bottle and thus flavors within a certain bottle can be connected with nature’s behavior during the same year. Therefore, it encourages both discussion and comparing of different vintages and also helps connecting flavors with nature’s cycles.

Results: Apart from its educative features, the collection Piquentum Sv. Vital 12/13/14 has also achieved excellent sales and promotional results. Comparing the selling year 2016/17 with the 2015/16, orders for all Piquentum wines have increased by 70% on the hitherto existing foreign markets (Italy, USA, Austria, France) and collaboration with new foreign markets has started (UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Japan…) Collection Sv Vital 12/13/14, as other Piquentum wines of the same years – all sold out. The label has won more than 10 national and international awards and has achieved significant media coverage.

What’s Unique?
Vintage year is always denoted on the bottle, but how many of us really understand it? It actually witnesses the natural conditions in which the wine matured; it is its own BIOGRAPHY. We decided to rise awareness about the importance of understanding the year indicated on the bottles. With the use of pesticides and balancing flavors, it eventually lost its meaning, flavors are becoming ready-made and unrelated to the actual weather conditions. The labels are using the data about the weather conditions in the territory of vineyard (the amount of precipitation) and interpreting them so that consumers can understand how different weather conditions affect the diversity of flavors, since wine is exclusively a product of nature itself. They can compare flavors of bottles with labels (ex.more rainfall=more freshness) but also wines from the same vineyard but of different years. This collection promotes the producer’s key values that are within all his products.