As the wine industry has grown in leaps and bounds over the past 10 years or so, it has been discovered recently that most "new" wine drinkers are taken more by the label on the wine than by the wine itself.  A wine with a fun, abstract, artistic, or just off-beat design can be one of the best marketing tools for a winemaker. 

In just the past few years, many national amateur winemaking competitions (and some commercial ones) have incorporated Wine Label Competitions into their annual format.  2008 marked the first time that Walker Family Vintners entered a few of its newest, distinctive, and personally-designed labels into a label competition.  The results were fantastic for our first venture, resulting in our four labels earning a Silver, Bronze, and two Honorable Mention awards at the 2008 Orange County Fair.

These labels represent a "series" of labels that photographically (using PhotoShop editing to highlight part of the digital photo) focus on four of the primary parts or steps of the winemaking process...therefore the series name "Focal Point". 

The four labels are:  the vineyard setting, entitled "Fruit of the Vine", which focuses on the grapes themselves; two labels that regard the two types of pressing, one entiled "Spent Grapes", focusing on the pressing of the white grapes to remove the skins and seeds prior to fermentation; the other entitled "Work of Human Hands", focusing on the post fermentation press of the new red wine that removes most of the skins and seeds, leaving a heavily sedimented but beautiful nouveau red wine flowing from the press.  The final label in the series, focusing on the bottling of the new wine, is entitled "Precious Drop", reminding us that every drop of a great wine is precious.  And here they are:

Silver Award-winning label, entitled "Spent Grapes".

Bronze Award-winning label, entitled "Precious Drop."

Honorable Mention Award-winning label, entitled "Fruit of the Vine".

Honorable Mention Award-winning label, entitled "Work of Human Hands".