2012 WineMaker Wine Label Contest Winners

It’s not often that we thank people for making our job difficult, but when it comes to judging the label contest we appreciate the challenge you artists provide for us each year, as well as all of the hard work and imagination that goes into your designs. This year we picked a gritty guns and Grigio theme as our grand prize winner, a design with a vintage vibe for gold, fruit bombs for silver and a blocky Barbera for bronze. Thank you to everyone who entered. Also, thank you to all of our generous sponsors for providing so many great prizes.

GRAND
Greg and Jody Lumsden
Glen Carbon, Illinois

Greg and Judy came up with this idea, surprisingly, as Greg’s birthday theme (for the impending apocalypse). “Since my birthday is on December 21, 2012 — the supposed end of the world — I said that I would want my gold, guns and homemade wine. It just so happened that I was working on a Pinot Grigio at the time so it kinda stuck.”

GOLD

Michael DiFrisco
Madison, Wisconsin

“In my mind there’s nothing quite as elegant and esthetic as a 1950s-era tailfin,” says Michael. “When I came across these classic illustrations of vintage tailfins, I just knew they had to be incorporated into a wine label.”

SILVER

Rebecca Reeb
Escondido, California

After a “surface-of-the-sun” hot summer that scorched her vineyard, Rebecca imagined with her original artwork that relief planes would buzz her winery and dump tons of healthy Zinfandel grapes.

BRONZE
Louis Matrulli
Utica, New York

Larry Forte designed this playful label for Louis with contrasting typefaces and a hand-drawn glass of wine for Louis’ Mohawk Valley, New York winery.