Calera’s back label passes the usefulness test!
Schmaltzy story, cheesy adjectives, mentions of “handcrafted“: none.
Vineyard data and winemaking info: bountiful.
What with Ridge Vineyards, Bonny Doon, and Calera putting lots of info on their labels, there must be something in the air of the Santa Cruz and Gavilan Mountains.
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On April 20th, 2011 at 1:44 pm ,Mike Duffy wrote:
Interestingly though, I can’t get this same information from the Calera website (some of it is buried under their fact sheets for “the trade”).
If it’s important enough to be on the back label, isn’t it important enough to be permanently available to consumers on their website?
I seem to have missed the discussion about what makes for a “good” back label — beyond the legal requirements, isn’t the back label supposed to help sell the wine? Anyone with empirical evidence that all this information increases Calera’s retail sales?
It would be interesting to do an A/B test of back label copy. I’m no fan of content-free copy, but I’ll bet Twisted Oak (for example) does better with their humorous back label copy that they would with a lot of numbers (which might work better for other wineries).
It seems that most wineries don’t test much of anything related to what gets people to buy a bottle off a store shelf. Intuition is frequently dead wrong.
On April 20th, 2011 at 10:51 pm ,Robin C wrote:
You’ll have to point out the cheesy adjectives. I missed them.
On April 21st, 2011 at 12:16 am ,Louis wrote:
Agree with this approach 100%, if more producers gave at least a little more info like this then we wouldn’t be groping blindly when reaching for a bottle from an unfamiliar region. Crop yields, vinification and case #’s are a must.
On April 21st, 2011 at 7:26 am ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Hi Mike – I’m sure many wineries have done focus groups on back labels. However, I doubt that Calera falls into that camp.
Funny that the label is more informative than the web site! Usually, it’s the other way around, with a URL pointing the consumer to more info on the site.
Robin – I was commending them on NOT having cheesy adjectives.
Louis – Glad you agree.
On April 22nd, 2011 at 12:41 am ,Christopher Watkins wrote:
Very happy to see us getting the nod here, and while we may not be poring over google analytics everyday, we do feel strongly that our back label content has been a vital part of the overarching Ridge philosophy in action, so again, very nice to see it being recognized. Thank you so much!
Regards,
Christopher Watkins
Manager, Retail Sales & Hospitality
Ridge/Monte Bello
Host: “4488: A Ridge Blog”
On May 22nd, 2011 at 4:25 pm ,marisa d'vari wrote:
Our group of MW students had a tasting of Calera from 2000, and as wine geeks we all really liked having the label give detailed information like native yeast, rootstock, etc.
Yet I agree that a humorous label with SOME wine info probably sells more bottles, especially with non-geek consumers.