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Château Picoron Is Home To Some Of The World's Most Prestigious Wines

by Chloe Gordon on 01/26/2022 | 3 Minute Read

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Cha?teau Picoron is an Australian-owned organic vineyard in Bordeaux, France. Home to some of the most prestigious wines in the world, Bordeaux has begun to lose its appeal, especially to new generations of drinkers. Falling victim to their very own self- imposed regulations, Bordeaux risks the extinction of their wine, and the continued existence of its ancestry.

Working alongside Cha?teau Picoron, we learned of Bordeaux’s incredibly restrictive winemaking regulations and constraints – many imposed by law – instituted in an attempt to preserve the specificity of the wine; enforcing the vineyards to adhere to their rules in order to qualify for Bordeaux’s appellation.

Cha?teau Picoron’s goal is to create a new and inclusive image for Bordeaux by shaking the conformity and snobbery of the region; making wines more fun, while honouring their legacy. Cha?teau Picoron sought to kick start something new, to revitalise a region, and to honour its history. To, in their own words, cultivate a “New Bordeaux.”

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Cha?teau Picoron celebrates Merlot’s past, as well as its future; exploring six different expressions of this grape across their wine collection. The word Merlot’s origin is hailing from the local blackbirds (Merle), who had developed a taste for the fruit. It was here that we found our inspiration for Picoron’s mascot; a blackbird. Used both as a logo-mark and as the brand’s storyteller, the blackbird chaperons the audience through Picoron’s world of wine, playing games and telling the tales behind the Cha?teau.

We further advanced the notion of constraint by committing to use one typeface, Bourrasque, in doing so exploring the sans serif’s full potential within our self-imposed restraints. Investigating the potential for restrictions within the brand’s copy, the product's names are palindromic – able to be read both backwards and forwards – providing an innate harmony and infinite symmetry to the identity.

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As part of the concept we created a mark and a community for Bordeaux winemakers – the OUVIPO (Ouvroir de vins potentielles, roughly translated as ‘workshop of potential wines’) – a gathering for winemakers around the world to connect and share the philosophy of making wines by honouring natural and self-imposed constraints and exploring challenging and sustainable methods of harnessing the fruit and its terroir.

Today, however, the greatest constraints are created by nature itself; with climate change inevitably transforming the way the world produces food.Finding opportunity and poetry within restriction, we saw these constraints as an exercise in creativity and balance. Communicating the constraints whilst respecting the craft in a playful and fundamentally approachable way.

Editorial photograph
Editorial photograph
Editorial photograph
Editorial photograph
Editorial photograph