The Grocery Store Set

I was in Publix recently and took a gander at their wine department.  It never hurts to see what's selling at the competition and while it didn't look like much was going on there, I hung around for a few minutes anyway...because I had to.  I was paralyzed.  The brightly colored labels and whimsical names kind of perversely overwhelmed me for a minute before I got my bearings again.  Then I thought for a minute longer about what had just happened.

Here's the historical perspective: Fifty years ago wine labels were usually white with no nonsense information on the front like producer, type and vintage.  Usually the plainer the label, the better the wine.  At least that's the way it used to be.  Fancier labels evoked suspicion, like, Why are they trying so hard to sell this stuff?  Now I guess the MBA's and admen have transformed the industry into something sensational.  They've made that grocery store wine aisle into an adventureland.  And I get it.  The mass marketing of wine in grocery stores wasn't successful with the plain labels.  They needed to be dolled up.

What I don't get is the silliness in many of those labels.  The captivating colors I get.  You see something similar in other aisles; soups, frozen foods, breakfast cereals.  This is the way it is in the modern grocery biz.  Colors can be mesmerizing.  And I'm sure the appeal is dissected repeatedly in labs and boardrooms to get those color schemes just right.  It's just the way it is.

I remember a label from several years ago, Angry Housewife, or something like that.  I remember at the time thinking, What does that have to do with wine?  It's a distraction from what's in the bottle, which to my my way of thinking, probably means the wine isn't very good.  Like Yellowtail.  

If the silliness in wine labeling continues I'm left wondering how long before Tony the Tiger makes his appearance on a wine label.