Package Design | packagedesignmag.com

(September 2010) posted on Mon Oct 11, 2010

By Patrick Henry

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

About 90% of the wine made in the U.S. comes from California, and about 4% of California wine comes from the Napa Valley. The Napa Valley Vintners, a trade association, says that wine pressed from Napa Valley appellation grapes amounts to about 9.5 million cases annually. But, it’s mostly small-scale production: three-quarters of the region’s 400 or so wineries make fewer than 10,000 cases per year.
JAQK Cellars, one of newest sources of Napa Valley wines, expects to beat the 10,000-case benchmark next year if all goes according to plan. It will be a juicy achievement indeed for a business launched less than two years ago by people who, for the most part, weren’t wine industry professionals. In the beginning, they didn’t even have the wine grapes—but they did have a fully ripened plan for a brand identity that may be the most singular that Napa Valley and the rest of California’s wine country has ever seen.
One look at the bottle of any of the eight JAQK Cellars varietals reveals the line’s visual identification with gambling, and it’s tempting to read the images of cards, roulette wheels, etc., as unintended metaphors for the business risks that the young company is taking. But, that would be missing the point.
Far from being a roll of the dice, JAQK Cellars is a carefully calculated marketing venture by branding professionals who understand the crucial role of eye appeal in successful consumer product marketing. That’s what makes package design, as expressed in the highly stylized appearance of the bottles, so central to their strategy.