Mouton Rothschild are well known for their art based labels and they’ve used artists from all over the world so why not China? The Chinese are very nationalistic so it’s only appropriate that they would feel strongly for the Chinese artists label. Now, if Mouton do a special edition Chinese label every year featuring a Chinese artist things are slightly different. That’s not so much about art as it is about marketing.
Is that any different to the briefs we receive everyday that ask us to use all the dark arts of persuasion to target Chinese consumers and get sales? Should Claret, by some purest ethics, be above such obvious sales techniques? Is the art supposed to be inside the bottle?
Rothschild could argue artistic license but Lafite’s red eight is another thing altogether. That’s marketing at its absolute crassest. I know they’ll argue it’s 2008 vintage but show me another case when they’ve done something so opportunistic with their labels just to drive up prices.
What is clear is that the Chinese believe that they can influence their fortunes with a few well known talismen. Namely, the number eight, the colour red and the metal gold. That’s what we get on every single label brief for China. They don’t like white space because emptiness is unlucky and black reminds them of death. A Chinese printer must have the easiest job in the world because their Pantone book contains only two chips. ‘Red, sir? Of course, sir. And a splash of gold? Of course, sir. Shall I scatter a few eights around? Of course I shall.’ So good luck to them and if it makes them feel good then who are we to judge?
And a big, fat, gold and red lucky eight to the Bordelaise too. We all know that Lafite is China’s darling, we’ve lots of pictures of Lafite-a-likes and we’ve seen empty bottles of Lafite change hands for hundreds of dollars just for refill value. I’d have preferred to see them spend their print budget on responsible tamper proofing and the latest techniques for cutting down forgery so a consumer would have a greater than one in ten chance of drinking a real bottle of Lafite in China but I’m old fashioned that way.
I predict, because Bordeaux is all about the Asian price these days, that we’re going to see many more labels done by the Chinese printer.
