The Art of a Wine Bottle
ACM-IAU’s Les Saules vineyard is relatively young – only being planted in 2021 – and comprising of roughly 300 vines of Grenache, Syrah, and Cinsault. The site of ACM’s School of Art Marchutz program, the property was originally named by the former school director and local artist, Leo Marchutz, and his wife Barbara, to acknowledge the regionally rare willow trees on the land.
This past year, the Center for Wine & Gastronomy invested in all of the equipment necessary to create a fully functional in-house winery. From pruning to bottling, students have been involved with every step of the process. The vineyard is farmed biodynamically, with an emphasis on promoting local biodiversity and soil health. The wine is made in the same spirit, with a low-intervention and zero-addition mindset… meaning it is a single-ingredient product: grape juice.
However, the wine industry encompases more than working in the vineyard or the winery. In that vein, the WGS/MKT 302, Wine Marketing and Analysis course run by Professor Anthony Triolo (Head Winegrower and Vintner at ACM-IAU) was given a semester-long project to create an artistic label for the Les Saules 2024 vintage.
Students were given the above information, and told approaches to the task could include the portrayal of: “the winemaker’s value, local history, specificities of the site, the sensory characteristics of the wine…” etc. Taught that – from a consumer perspective – the label is the wine’s primary communication tool; so a target audience must be defined, and specific reasoning must go into the design. The sole parameters were to make the design duplicatable and digitized and to cross-collaborate with a volunteer student-artist from the Marchutz Art Program.
Two labels out of the ten submitted over the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters were chosen to represent the two wines made this year. The label from spring semester’s Group 1: Allison Gadberry, Kate Gendrich, and Ava Hammerman for a blend comprising of all three grapes. The label from spring semester’s Group 3: Macey Shape, Katie Gula, Sarah Damon, Piper Deaser, and Birdy Tuggle for a single-varietal Syrah.
Students from each group described the collaboration as an unexpected pleasure. The marketing teams spoke of conflict when different ideas arose within their groups, which needed to be overcome in order to move forward. Many expressed gratitude for the ability to work with artists, allowing them to focus on the marketing aspects rather than spending their time on something outside of their interests. These elements, as well as direct feedback throughout the process from Professor Triolo (the client) mimicked real-world situations in which these future marketing professionals may one day find themselves.
The competition’s winning artists, Georgia Robb (Group 1) and Joy Nelson (Group 3), also gave their perspectives on the collaboration process, both expressing delight that their labels were selected.
After being told her label was selected for the Syrah single-varietal bottle, Joy expressed:
“The original draft was rough, but Professor Triolo gave the group lots of instructions, and from there I had a strong idea of what to do. In my oil painted depiction of Les Saules, I added the Aries constellation and this moon phase to identify the time of year in the vineyard: spring. These are the essential aspects of Biodynamic Farming, which we use at Marchutz. I also added a cow skull to replicate solution 501, another part of Biodynamic farming. In the vineyard we put rose bushes in front of each row to catch any disease headed for the vines, so you can see those in the front of each in my painting. This semester I took Professor Triolo’s Applied Sustainable Viticulture class, so I was prepared to add little touches from the coursework to make our label detail oriented and personal. Overall, it’s been great to get involved with the school and collaborate with my team and professors and be a little part of IAU’s history.”
When she was informed her label was selected for the Grenache-Syrah-Cinsault blend, Georgia shared:
“When I was first given the opportunity, I debated between a traditional medium or a digital medium but ultimately thought that working digitally would allow quick and easy edits. The original draft was pretty quick, but I thought it didn’t exactly suit my own personal art style, since I’m more comfortable working with traditional mediums. With the initial feedback from my group, I went back in and completely changed the design, as well as the style so it would look more hand-drawn. This shift also lent itself to the edits in the design that made the label more personalized to Marchutz and specified some details in the wine-making process, such as the constellations in the sky.
I cannot emphasize enough how amazing my group was at communicating with me and how I couldn’t have done it without their amazing ideas!”
The project’s goal was to bring together various colleges within ACM-IAU in order to allow students to leave a lasting impact on this chapter of the school’s history. To that end, students seem to have found joy and meaning in their work as well as finding pride in having left their mark for generations to come.
– C. P. deLeón-Franzen