Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Dakota Berg Award-winning packaging for Buckwood Wine Co. by DKTB Design

Everybody knows that person who seems to know more about wine than anybody else at the table. But do they? Does that $90 bottle of Pinot Noir really taste 6 times better than your $15 bottle? Really, it’s subjective… but it could. The cost of a bottle of wine is generally based on five main things: where it was produced (location), when it was produced (year), the amount produced (yield), the process by which it’s aged (can be hard to improve) and the perceived value (the most flexible item as a designer). Blind test after blind test have shown that even renowned wine connoisseurs have a hard time deciphering between a cheap bottle and an expensive bottle of wine consistently.

Most people buy wine based solely on the bottle and label.

Robert T. Hodgson, a statistician, showed that wines that got the highest score in one competition also often got the lowest score in another. One “expert” may completely disagree with another. Consistency is lacking, which shows that much of it is subjective and based on the person’s individual taste. When given the same bottle of wine 3 times in a study, oftentimes they will give different scores to the same wine, unknowingly.

The wine inside of the bottle is only as good as where it came from. The design should reflect that.

Multiple surveys have shown that when people were served the exact same wine but in two different bottles labeled with two different price points, people tend to perceive the “more expensive” wine as being better in most cases. This is due to the fact that there is a small portion of our brain that inherently associates price with quality, which is why we instinctively prefer brand names and luxury cars. When most people buy wine, they are often just shopping based on the bottle and the label.

Which do you prefer based on design alone?

This is where design comes into play. But how much can really be designed on a wine bottle? For starters, the bottle shape, bottle color and glass type, which should also be influenced by the type of wine inside. The brand logo, the main label, the neck label, the capsule and any associated packaging (hang tags, bottle decorations, boxes, custom displays, etc.) should also be carefully considered. Everything from the paper texture, to the color palette, the label shape, the finishing details like embosses, foils or UV spot gloss, the typography and even the language used to describe the product makes an impact on how a customer perceives that bottle of wine. Is it worth $4? Or $40? Maybe even $400?

Every detail matters when you’re competing with 1,000s of other wines for shelf space.

A 2008 study that compiled over 6,000 blind taste tests found that unless a person has had formal training, they tend to prefer the taste of cheaper wines to the more expensive wines. Does this mean you should go out and buy a box of wine, pour it into bottles with a nice label and sell it for $99 / bottle? No. But most people wouldn’t really know if you did. And if you can, my hat is off to you! But if you do, make sure you follow the laws, this isn’t the wild west out here anymore.

About the author

Dakota is an entrepreneur & designer from the Pacific Northwest. Owner of DKTB Design, Partner at Black Hatchet & Lead Designer at SportsCastr.

How Design is Used to Alter The Perceived Value of Wine was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How Design is Used to Alter The Perceived Value of Wine

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