the brief

The family has farmed the same schist terraces above the Douro since 1911 and had never had a brand, only a crest on the cork. The next generation wanted to sell to restaurants in Lisbon, London and Copenhagen without losing what their grandparents built.

the approach

We kept the crest and redrew it to work at small sizes, then built the labels around a hand-drawn map of the estate. Each wine names its terrace, its altitude and the year the vines were planted.

The labels are letterpressed in Porto on cotton paper that holds up in an ice bucket. Cases, tissue and price lists use the same two colours: river green and the ochre of the terrace walls.

the outcome

The wines are now listed in forty restaurants across four countries. The crest is still on the cork.