Volcanic Appellation

We have recently been joined in the studio by Eva Cartwright, owner of the Somlo wine shop in Hungary where visitors can sample over 160 wines from Somlo-hill. We've sampled 6 of these so far but as we are now helping with her identity and branding for promotion of these wines in the UK we should be able to fit in a few more.

We started with the naming and although 'Somlo Wines' locates the vineyards and shop we felt some of the other background information would capture more interest from potential customers in the UK. The name Witness Mountains caught our eye. Eva told us the story of the mountains of Hungary, or volcanoes as they were, witnessing the sea that surrounded them receding to form what is now the Mediterranean. This environmental change on a huge scale is not only clearly visible from aerial views but it left a very fertile land that is perfect for growing wine.

The Romans discovered the true potential of this land and many of the vineyards have evolved from their original vines. The nature of the volcanic and sediment rich soil, the Terroir, gives the wines their unique flavour and the opportunity for the UK market to try something different. Eva's current hashtag #govolcanic is likely to be retained to sign off the story but we discussed the opportunity of asking customers to look at her wine from a 'different perspective' in a very conventional market. This became one steer for the development of the logo.

The selected approach is a simple typographic play on the strapline 'different perspectives', and also fits well with Eva's request for something modern and functional. We see this flip of words becoming part of the visual language of the brand across all marketing materials.

This is just the start of our relationship with Eva and Witness Mountain Wines while she looks to crack the English market and gain recognition for her wide selection of Hungarian Volcanic wines over here. Obviously this means that we will still need to play guinea pig and have the wines tested on us! It’s a hard job but someone has to do it. To find out more about Witness Mountain Wines you can view the current shop site at somloi.hu.