Can you judge a wine bottle by its cover?
Story Molly O'Brien
Photography Courtesy of Vineyard & Winery
It’s safe to say that winemaking is in and of itself a form of fine art involving creativity, craft, and a plenty of specialized skill. But similar to the chicken and the egg dilemma, which comes first? The wine label — offering insight into the flavor and vibes of the wine – or the blend, itself?
Usually it’s the wine. But at Neighborhood Winery, a Central Coast family-owned brand of Pali Wine Co. that focuses on natural winemaking practices (excluding additives and chemicals using specifically only fresh Central California-grown grapes), the team has taken on a new way of making wine that is, in fact, inspired by the design of the label.
In this case, perhaps it is fair to judge a book – err, blend – by its cover label. At Neighborhood Winery, the arrival of warm weather means the coming of a special time of year signified by a limited release called “Summer Sessions.” Each wine blend in this collection is a unique “pairing” of flavor and artwork inspired by the designs on the labels themselves. It’s a playful, lively, and seasonal collection of wine that’s as fun as its name, combining a sense of whimsy in the wines by way of art.
Neighborhood Winery Founder Nick Perr, who has a background in artistic design, uses this experience and education to create a distinctive label that conjures up a sense of inspiration for Winemaker Aaron Walker and Associate Winemaker John Schultz. Their brains are made for blending and this process yields a once-in-a-lifetime, one-of-a-kind, unconventional formulation (that sells out extremely quickly and can’t be found anywhere else).
The idea dates back to 2020, and since then has become an annual tradition.
“Summer Sessions is fun for all of us, because they’re one off wines,” shares Aaron. “They’re not meant to be repeated the following year or any other year.”
Nick’s family has been working with Aaron for many years. When Nick graduated college with a degree in painting at UCLA and fell into the family winemaking business, it was only natural that he’d incorporate his artistic passion into the business in some way, shape or form (and push for the creation of a line of natural wines).
Nick began creating the artwork for all of the labels on the Pali Wine bottles. He pushed for more natural wine making. The Neighborhood brand of natural wines was born under the Pali umbrella, and with it, some more “experimental” ways of operating.
Nick and the team started to notice there always seemed to be some leftover wine from whatever vintage was being created that year. So, one year they decided to do some experimenting.
“We were in uncharted territories,” says Nick. “These grapes weren’t conventionally blended together to begin with, so there was no real preconceived idea of how these wines were going to be put together. It kind of worked out to come up with this unorthodox process of making these wines and allowed us to be okay with breaking the rules of traditional wine blending.”
So, how does the process of “Summer Sessons” happen, today?
First comes the brainstorming of the year’s theme. Then, Nick spends some time coming up with artwork based on that year’s theme. This year, the theme is loosely based around warm weather “picnicking.”
Once the Pali team sees Nick’s ideated labels, they’ll start brainstorming wine names and conceptualizing how they think that label should look and taste as a wine based on the artwork.
“We’ll go through, we’ll get the five of art from Nick, and we will, we’ll say, ‘All right, this one looks just feels like it should be a white wine,’” says Walker. “This one feels like it should be a red wine, or a rose wine or an orange wine.”
They have some rough guidelines for the collection knowing they’ll only be making about 30 cases of each wine and that they’ll want a variety of white, maybe rosé and reds. The team intentionally saves excess wine, not knowing exactly what it will eventually become. But they go into each harvest season knowing they’re going to need some options to create these summer session wines, (without knowing what those summer session wines are until after these wines have been made).
Then, they’ll come up with the blends based on the mix of artwork using wines that are available for experimentation, in the cellar. They get a sense from the label and use that to produce a wine that matches the vibe of the artwork.
“It’s a very backward approach, [for] when it comes to bottling a wine, you know?” shares Aaron. “Usually you know what you’re making when you buy the grapes, or you harvest the grapes, whatever it may be, and you know what bottle of wine or that’s going to go into, or what label it’s going to go under. So, we make some wine each year, not knowing exactly where it’s destined for.”
This year, one bottle’s artwork features two smiling pup friends: Aaron’s dog, Maggie, and Nick’s dog, Lottie.
“The first thing that comes to mind is I don’t want the wine to smell or taste like dogs,” jokes Arron. “We’re gonna get away from that association. But we did want it to be a fun and playful wine because that’s what those dogs are, right?”
Once the designs and the blends are finalized, the label will be placed, the labels will come in, the wine will get bottled, and the final product will go out.
“We make such limited quantities of these that they really go to our wine club, and that’s kind of it,” says Nick. “There’s usually some left over — but ultimately, it’s a very small quantity of wines. And I think that’s part of the charm of it, too. They’re kind of fleeting, and we don’t hold on to them. They sell out very quickly, and they kind of are just here, here, today, gone tomorrow.”
When it comes to the blending and winemaking process, Perr says he knows his team is more than qualified to get the job done in a way that compliments his art. “I fully trust them, and I think that that’s part of the fun of it, is that I get to be surprised too,” he says. “It’s something that we all look forward to… I think that we’re building a following of people who are keyed into what we’re doing, and who [also] look forward to it.”
Nick has been designing all wine bottle labels for the Pali brand since his involvement with the family business began, even outside the summer sessions project. He says someday he’d like to get other artists involved in it. This would help to build upon their existing community while giving other talented writers a chance to showcase their work, as well as challenging their winemaking team to work with and become inspired by a potentially new mode of design, such as abstract art.
Summer Sessions wines are in extremely lean quantities due to their limited production, and most of the bottles go to Neighborhood Winery Wine Club members. This means the best bet to get a bottle is to become a wine club member.
“It’s important [to me] that the package is really thoughtful and considered and gives context into what the wine might taste like and the whole vibe and experience,” says Nick. “I think that wine is an art too, and is very expressive. I think that [these winemakers] think of their wines in a similar way that artists think about their art. So I just think it’s a natural pairing of the two of them, and that’s something that’s important to us, and we’re always looking for ways to feature the two together.”
