The Auswine Forum

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Certainly changing your labels & your logo seems a funny way to celebrate 150 years.
There's a long tradition of wineries putting towers or chateau on their labels - I rather liked the distinct similarities between the 1949 label shown in their last newsletter, and the just-retired version - details different but the core unchanged - much the way an Haut Brion label from 1923 looks very like the one they are still using.
(Rather like a 1970s Porsche looking just like a 2006 model despite no common components at all.)
What possessed Tahbilk to throw away their existing, slightly-unfashionable-but-getting-timeless label for a poor copy of Taylor's of Clare label escaped me entirely.
The shelf stand-out factor is completely gone - I don't believe the way to attract Generation Y-Z-whatever is by looking boringly indistinguishable from everyone else.
Although maybe it is, who knows?
I think it was a bloody stupid idea, and it wouldn't surprise me if they admitted as much and moved back. The trouble witrh 'modernizing' is that sometimes it's just being fashionable, which obliges you to jump on a bandwagon you were never on before. (Remember Wolf Blass' horrific modernising of the Black Label for the 93 vintage, and its swift reversal?)
Wynns have it right - tinker, but maintain the tradition.
cheers,
Graeme

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Sean O'Sullivan wrote:So you don't like the label changes, Graeme.

I have mixed feelings about some of the changes too. But this was more of an ode to Tahbilk, so I wasn't being too critical.

No, I don't. Won't stop me buying the wines, but I just can'tsee any good reason for the change. "The old label was old." Not good enough. When something's right, it's right - doesn't matter how old it is. Just because it's change doesn't mean it's progress. My violin's about the same age as Tahbilk, but I'm not about to take it to a luthier and have him trim the shape so it looks more modern.
Daft. Can't believe someone didn't talk them out of it.
cheers,
Graeme

Sean, thanks for such a detailed recount of Tahbilk's history and development but I was already aware of it, having read the history on the site . I guess I should try more of the Dalfarras line but the core label is more to my interest. The Tahbilk gsm seems to have been dropped as was the malbec, perhaps the latter wasn't as popular as the cab franc which seems to appeal to other Tabilkistes as well as myself.

Cheers

daz

GraemeG wrote:

Sean O'Sullivan wrote:So you don't like the label changes, Graeme.

No, I don't.

[GrumpyOldMan] I don't either - its moronic. This incessant desire of marketeers to 'upgrade', 'progress', 'improve' and basically meddle without any consideration for longevity and tradition is a sad example of a wide-spread, modern, americanized, cost-of-everything-value-of-nothing cultural malaise that increasingly pi##es me off. Esk Valley need a thick ear as well. Nothing wrong with their old labels, they were actually rather stately. The worlds going to hell in a handcart. I need a cup of tea. [/GrumpyOldMan]

I wonder how many marketing experts have ever looked for a specific wine on a wine shop shelf? In a previous life as a merchandiser for Hardy's I had to necktag I think it was Nottage Hill. It was just another beige label in a sea of beige labels.
My biggest problem with the new Tahbilk labels is they are so bland as to be sure to be lost in the sea of beige.

Yep another who thinks the labels are a mistake.

I for one like the new label. Being adapted from an original label it retains its historical signicicance...hardly a case of marketing types changing things that arent broken. Anyone who has spoken with Alistair and the team at Tahbilk will know they are not ones to change for the sake of it.

Will add too that I thought the old label did them no favours...quaint at best, daggy at worst and completely at odds with the quality of the wines.

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Sean O'Sullivan wrote:Reading the back label on the current Shiraz gives you the reason for the change. The new label is a reproduction of a 1932 label that Eric Purbrick's wines had and obviously this strikes a chord with the Purbricks and why they chose it in a year that they are acknowledging their heritage. I get the feeling from reading the back label that Alister (and the Purbricks) made the decision, not some marketing type.

Well, possibly, although this strikes me as taking things too far. I imagine printing something like the yellow-tower label would have been bloody expensive in 1932. The corollary to "When something's right, it's right - doesn't matter how old it is" that I wrote before, is that just because it's old, doesn't mean that it is right. I thought they'd already resurrected an ancient label for the Reserve wines, anyway - and they're very understated, which might is OK for a small volume, high-priced wine.
The single biggest problem I see with the change is that it's made the bottles look completely anonymous, and yet fashionable at the same time. Lousy combination...
cheers,
Graeme

I think they could have done a revamp of the label, including colours etc, and included the building. To my mind, the Tahbilk building is as core an aspect of their heritage as the gables are for Wynns. FWIW, if I'd have been involved in the rebranding, I'd have used the mailing list at Tahbilk as a resource and tested label design ideas (and the thinking behind them) with the list - focus group mode or otherwise - and got some validation that way. They've come up with a label that, for me, looks cheap, anonymous, bland and does not capitalise on the history that is core to the brand.

But I'll keep buying the wines anyway.

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Sean O'Sullivan wrote:Graeme, I had much the same reaction as you initially. And I agree it will be harder spotting it in the big stores. No doubt a label (even if it is a daggy one) that stands out in a crowd or that has familiarity (and trust) for someone who has bought the wine over a long period of time helps sell a wine.

It is irriating how often labels change and come and go, so maybe we put too much store in them. Maybe we should just come to each bottle of wine without all the sentiment and expectations. Perhaps when you open the bottle and drink the wine it will win you over anyway.

If anything, dickering about with the label is more likely to convince me they're NOT confident about the wine. Why change the outside if the inside's the same - and you don't want to change the inside? Like the Porsche example I mentioned, I think just tinkering with the label to maintain freshness is all that's needed. See Wynns, Henschke, Cullen, Brokenwood. (Whaddawewant? Evolutionary Change! When do we want it? In Due Course!).
Aside from which, 'daggy' is a) subjective, and b) transient. If you really want to make a statement about the contents of the bottle being important, you have a label like Wendouree or Yarra Yering or Yquem which makes it clear you don't give a fig about 'marketing'. Tahbilk were in an ideal mid-point of 'proper wine' - not flashy or tacky (like the nightmare that was Seppelt in the 90s - stare too long at the 1998 Chalambar packaging and reach for your epilepsy medication*), not anonymous like some cru growth Bordeaux with 3-colour outlines and Italic black script, but as unique and distinctive as Egon Muller, Haut Brion or Ridge. It wasn't unfashionable, so much as plain anti-fashion. I would have thought that was a point in its favour.
And anyway, it made them easier to see in my cellar.

*Actually, I'm convinced one of the reasons Seppelt's wine picked up so much from 1999-ish under Arthur O'Connor was that the winemaking team didn't have to feel embarrased about the packaging that was adorning their wines any more...

cheers,
Graeme