![]() $37 wines just don't have customers lining up to buy cases of them. Just kidding with the "anyone" comment, but I must say in all my years in the wine industry I have never come across a wine that has developed such a buzz about it so quickly, so completely and so justifiably at the mid-$30's price point that The Prisoner commands. Just in case you haven't, and you simply aren't anyone if you haven't, it is a hedonistic blend of Zinfandel, Cabernet, Syrah, Petite Sirah, Charbono, a Kitchen Sink, Grenache and a steering wheel from a '68 'Cuda. However, Orin Swift Cellars also makes a little wine called The Prisoner. Papillon may not be a wine that you are familiar with, in part because production was low and demand through the roof. Sure the packaging of the Orin Swift wines is awesome, with incredible labels adorning heavy-gauge glass bottles that just scream of quality, but it is the profound nature of the wines that continues to draw fans back like a moth to the flame. Here Phinney is at the top of his game.īut as they say, the proof is in the pudding, and a great label may reel you in for a sample, but only a truly superb bottle of wine will have you hooked for a lifetime. So the consumer is naturally drawn to the label that stands out, one that catches the eye or grabs the attention like a great bottle of burgundy. Some wine stores have grown to the size of Wal-Marts, with thousands of choices lining what seem like endless rows of vino. They may be sold by country, region, town, grape variety, style or even a fictitious proprietary name. Wine consumers today are faced with a vast array of wines from hundreds of grape varieties grown from all over the planet. It is a common fact that in the last ten years there has been an explosion in the research and development budgets of wineries, but not just for developing better wines, or for researching more suitable vineyard locations, but in the R & D of label art. Even more often we reach for a wine based solely on the gasp label art. ![]() Be it on the recommendation of the server, a wine dude or a friend we often grab wines that we are unfamiliar with. Now before all of you wine purists out there start slamming your mouse in disgust for the mere mention that something as trivial as packaging could play a role in the overall popularity of a wine, remember that 27% of all wine is purchased without knowing a single thing about the contents inside the bottle. Packaging you ask? Yeah, that's right I said packaging. Perhaps never before have we seen such a perfect storm of quality grapes, expert winemaking and slick packaging. Take for instance the latest Orin Swift creation Papillon, a Bordeaux-styled blend sourced from Vince Tofanelli's famous vineyard on the north end of Napa Valley. Not in the creepy, German-accented, trying to take over the world sort of way, but in the sense that everything he touches turns to gold. "He's the man, the man with the Midas touch." With apologies to Shirley Brassey for the lyrics and Ian Flemming for the inspiration, Dave Phinney of Orin Swift Cellars is the new Goldfinger.
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