Best Wine Labels Of 2015

Top 10 artists’ wine labels 27th August, 2015 by Lauren Eads The world of wine and art is a comfortable union, with the time and energy spent producing a fine bottle of wine comparable to a work of art. The creation of its label no exception. While the liquid inside a bottle is of crucial importance, a wine’s packaging is of near equal importance, helping to communicate a brand’s identity, personality and quality. With technology and retro labels currently gaining prominence in the world of drinks design, some producers have gone the extra mile, commissioning top artists to design their labels. Château Mouton Rothschild was an early pioneer of art labels, commissioning artists including Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol every year since 1945 to design its labels, while contemporary artists such as Tracey Emin and Yoko Ono have also lent their talent to the world of wine. Featuring some truly unique and striking designs, we round up 10 of our favourite wine labels designed by some of the world’s most prominent artists.

Click through to see our top picks… Subscribe to our newsletters Ornellaia collection makes $112,500 in NYC Week in Photos: Hong Kong The week in pictures Penfolds Grange leads Barossa Wine Chapters Auction ‘Rosé all day’ wine brand launched Dry whites will save sweet Sauternes Farmacy launches cannabis cocktails Power can be as dangerous as gin warns Pope Single Malt exports surpass £1billion for first time Bottega Gold wins US Duty Free listing Michael Schuster launches new website TFWA Asia Pacific Exhibition & Conference attracts record exhibitors Roumier leads the way at Sotheby's sale London Cru doubles production of English wine Diageo cuts UK jobs as it reviews spirits bottling Waitrose ups beer range by nearly 30% Prosecco ‘has paved the way’ for Franciacorta Craft beer: Clouds on the horizon Argentina on fine wine mission to rival Burgundy Tesco Champagne is cheaper than mouthwash

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The Global Sparkling Masters 2017 Deadline : 12th May 2017 Global Chardonnay Masters 2016 Now in its fourth year, the competition will identify the best Chardonnay from all around the world in every price range. Now in its fifth year, the competition will recognise and reward the finest Riojas on the world stage. Now in its third year, The Fortified Masters will reward the best fortified wines on offer. The Global Malbec Masters 2016 the drinks business is proud to announce the inaugural Global Malbec Masters 2016.buy ice wine near meC.A. Dry Creek Valley | best gift for the wine loverDesign: Stranger & Strangerbest cleaner for red wine on carpet Alamo Drafthouse Cinema | best budget red wines uk

Russian River Valley | Trinchero Family Estates | Design: Hatch Show PrintDesign: Brandever Strategy Inc. The Underdog Wine Co. | Urban Wine Works | Vi Novell Wine | Viva La Vid-a | Lagar de Costa | Paper Airplane Red | Promotional packaging for FRANK | Boarding Pass Shiraz | Floating Mountain Wine | Start GalleryThe days of grocery aisles stocked with Edwardian-Scripted wine bottles are hopefully close to being a thing of the past. Our favorite old-school alcoholic beverage is getting a fresh face with innovations in both the design of the label and the container itself. We’ve picked 50 of some of the best designs—and while we can’t vouch for the stuff inside—the look of them is enough to get your salivary glands going.13 July 2015 Several people have suggested that the Cellartracker app should also be mentioned because it uses Vivino's scanning technology in conjunction with its own formidable cellar-management software. 13 July 2015 I last wrote about label-scanner apps several years ago.

A new review is therefore long overdue, but it turns out that developments in this technological niche have been decidedly non-seismic. The basic principle remains unchanged: the software allows you to use your phone or tablet to photograph the label of a wine bottle, which is subsequently identified as automatically as possible. They all offer additional functionality, but this is the core proposition around which they are built. In my original report, there were two apps leading the field: Vivino and Delectable. That is still the case today, although my experience using each was not identical to the previous time. To test the apps, I assembled five bottles of wine at random, and took photographs of each label. The same photograph was then uploaded into each app, and each app was assessed based on how quickly and accurately the labels were identified. Seven apps were tested. As before, four of them did not work brilliantly well (and sometimes didn't work at all) and can not be recommended.

I've given them the briefest of write-ups, reserving more coverage for the three market leaders. Towards the end of the article I also mention several other wine-related apps worth knowing about. All these apps were tested on an iPhone 5S. Corkbin provided a decidedly underwhelming experience. Label recognition was almost entirely unsuccessful and some areas of content that either didn't load at all or didn't work properly. Snooth charged me £3.99 to access label scanning, but this feature never actually unlocked itself within the app - a fairly fatal bug. Drync fared slightly better, identifying one of the five wines instantly, but then taking 45 minutes to identify the other four. It has plenty of rich content, but a cursory glance revealed quite a bit of incorrect information, such as listing Whispering Angel rosé as being made from Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. Also, there is an emphasis on selling the wine, which seemed intrusive.I tested Hello Vino twice, because the first time my first experience of the app didn't work as expected.

On second try, it identified three of the five wines correctly. This seems to work by using text recognition on the label and matching the identified terms with the wine-searcher database. It therefore sometimes offers a list of options which may or may not be the correct match - for instance, the Mirabeau Pure rosé was among a list of other wines by the same producer, whereas in the list of Côte-Rôties it presented, the correct match wasn't present. I had a few issues with the interface too, especially when trying to select wines from the shortlist. The other catch is that whereas Delectable and Vivino are free, Hello Vino charges a small fee for access to label recognition - £0.79 for five scans or £3.99 for unlimited scans. Screengrabs of three apps struggling to identify labels Joining Vivino and Delectable as the best label scanning apps is price listing behemoth Wine-searcher, whose app introduced this function in November 2014. In all three cases, the label recognition software works well enough to justify recommending any of them.

Each has a different style and feel, and they also vary in terms of the extra functionality offered, meaning that personal preference may be the most important guide to choosing between them. This year, there is one that stands out as being the most successful for my review, however: Vivino. Its label recognition software got four out of the five labels immediately correct, by far and away the best performance. It was also quickest to identify the other label. By contrast, Delectable could manage only one immediate identification, although the others were identified within 30 minutes. This is almost exactly the opposite of my experience of these two apps for my 2013 review. What seems to have happened is that Vivino has considerably upped its game. My guess is that the efficacy of label recognition relies on a database of user input. As hitherto-unknown labels are scanned and identified, an immediate positive identification becomes more likely. I suspect that Vivino has stolen a march on Delectable and by garnering more users, and therefore label scans, is able to improve its proposition exponentially.

As I mention above, however, this is not necessarily the most important factor in choosing which app is best for particular users. Vivino (left, right) and Delectable (centre) both have smart, intuitive interfaces when identifying wines Winesearcher's strength is its unparalleled database of wine prices around the world. This works best with a Pro membership, costing $43 per year. If price comparison is worth that price to you, then this is going to be your best option. The image recognition functionality is not as impressive as Vivino's – but is presumably bound to improve. Delectable emphasises the social aspect of wine apps. It has a sleek, uncluttered design which encourages sharing and interaction. Users can follow and be followed, as with Twitter and Instagram, and there are a host of verified Pro users providing expert opinions. It also includes editorial content – for example, curated feeds dedicated to German Riesling and Loire Chenin Blanc. By comparison, Vivino has a busier, more detailed interface, although it is easily navigable.

It has similar social aspects but also includes written content such as articles and regional guides. An additional feature is a wine list scanner, which is an ingenious though limited function. This works by scanning the text of a wine list and providing aggregate scores for the wines it identifies. For straightforward lists such as The Wolseley's, this works remarkably well, though for more detailed lists, such as the one at The Quality Chop House, the result is less useful. The wine list reading feature within Vivino Choosing between Delectable and Vivino is not straightforward. Both are primarily dedicated to label scanning, both are well established, both offer clever functionality and both have compelling features. Thankfully, both are also free, so the best solution is to download and try each one. However, if I had to choose only one, this time round Vivino would win my vote. Three other wine apps are relatively new to the world, and worth knowing about, each of which offer something original and useful.

Raisinable is a smart piece of engineering that analyses the prices of restaurant wine lists. It does so by comparing restaurant prices with average retail prices as supplied by Winesearcher. The interface presents colour-coded prices, showing which wines have the lowest mark up and therefore offer best value. It's an inexact science, but works pretty well at giving general guidance – and is an intriguing tool for a wine lover to have at their disposal. Currently, it operates only in London and New York and is free to download. Mr Vine is a new free app designed to make it easier to buy from independent merchants. (Disclosure: I am part of the Mr Vine tasting panel, who make monthly recommendations of the best wines available to buy through the app.) It currently carries selections from 12 different wine shops, giving them a mobile retail platform while offering wine drinkers the sort of choice that goes beyond supermarket shelves, and includes recommendations based on inputting your taste preferences.

best wine labels of 2015