A major player on the highly competitive Finnish wine market, the Franco-British wine dealer and producer, Boutinot, introduced its two South-African Seriti wines in a distinctive exotic style. The Seriti Chenin Blanc features the delicate detail of a zebra skin, while the Seriti Merlot wine opted for the might of the cheetah.

Boutinot, a Cheshire-based wine production and distribution company, always has sought to remove the aura of elitism which has surrounded wine drinking, with light-hearted brand names such as "Old Git" and "Old Tart" carrying labels with caricatures of old gits and old tarts. Others are named "Italia" or "Big Mamma’s Italian Red" and a best-selling French wine is called "French Revolution".

There are no details about quality or regional origin on the labels of some of the wines, as the branding, which is certainly untypical for a wine business, is aimed at young drinkers in search of value as well as quality.

As a consequence of this positioning in the market Finnish wine lovers were conquered and gladly embarked on a trip to the savannah: the new packaging of these two wines intrigued and captured the attention of consumers.

The secret to this packaging success lies in the sleeves that startlingly reproduce the graphics of wild animal skins. Designed by DareDesign, Sleever International developed a solution that reinforces the intensity of a zebra and a cheetah skin.

Both sleeves are made from a special steam SI-PET-TG/050-Z film, particularly popular due to its shine and shrink properties, as the bottle’s shape required a shrink factor in excess of 60%. The "zebra" sleeve features 5-colour helio-engraving, including high-precision aluminium and a matte varnish (3/10th accuracy front printing) on the black areas. The "cheetah" sleeve for its part features 9 colours including one aluminium. In addition, the quality of the printing accuracy guarantees a homogeneous finish that intensifies the contrasts and the shine of the visual result. Aluminium and matte varnish accentuate the depth.

It is not the first time Sleever International shows its experience in creating ‘wildlife skin’ sleeves. In 2007 they created the incredible feel of six exceptional (and as original highly condemned) leather finishes of among others lizard, python and ostrich for Cognac de Luze’s limited series of leather-encased XO Cognac flasks. For Luze OX Cognac, Sleever used a mono-oriented elastomer-based film which has the unique property of remembering its shape after heat shrinking, which made it possible to create relief effects or three-dimensional patterns.

The stuffy wine market is transforming itself into a highly innovative one, not only MonOxbar-PET bottles, bag-in-boxes, TetraPaks or Astra’s Winebag, but now also in a material the wineries always have left alone: Aluminium.

Read the article: “Alu-Bottles for Wine adding Value to the Drinking Experience” at the blogspot: Best In Packaging 

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