Traditionally, wineries take their names from places or families, and wine package designs take their cues from classic Italian and French models. But how many classy wine bottles from Eagle Creek and Caravaggio Cellars do we need? Most people can’t remember the name of that wonderful Pinot Grigio they had last Saturday, not to mention the Riesling uncle Billy brought for New Year’s Eve. The names begin to mean nothing, and the designs just sit there looking pretty.

Bernie Hadley-Beauregard thinks it’s better to create a conversation, maybe even entertain wine drinkers with unexpected stories. His company, Brandever, bases its designs on regional history, local culture, or the defining characteristics of the owners. When they find the right story, they express it through offbeat names and nontraditional graphics.

Blasted Church is Brandever’s first baby. Looking around the winery’s hometown, Okanagan Falls, they found a 108-year-old church with an unusual past: It wasn’t built where it stands now, but in an abandoned gold rush camp 16 miles away. As the old-timers say, waste not, want not. The intrepid Okanagan pioneers decided to take it apart, move it to town, and rebuild it for their own use. They had the brilliant idea of loosening the nails by putting four sticks of dynamite inside and setting off a controlled blast. They lost the steeple in the explosion, but the church came apart easily, the boards were loaded onto trucks, and Okanagan Falls got a nice, secondhand church, presumably with low mileage (gold diggers aren’t exactly known for their piety).

Hadley-Beauregard loved this story, and named the winery Blasted Church. The initial reaction wasn’t great. “Isn’t that kind of blasphemous?” people would say. But it worked as a hook: That question needed an answer, and the salesman or sommelier could answer it. “No, it comes from a real story, and the church is still standing. Back in 1929 … .” That’s the whole point of using a challenging name. It starts conversations, and the stories that come out are unforgettable. If you like the wine, you’ll remember the name—especially compared to the original name, Prpich Hills. When the current owners bought Prpich Hills in 2003, it was floundering. In just three years with the name Blasted Church, it has become one of the top three wineries in British Columbia’s wine region, winning design awards and wine awards all over North America.

The name and design got the wine the attention it deserved. The charmingly spazzy illustrations, by Toronto artist Monika Melnychuk, carry the story. Apart from a brief statement that the name is based on local history, you get the story from expressive period caricatures of the mining engineer with the dynamite, the worried pastor, or a pair of amused sisters, with other story elements on the back of the wraparound label, such as a truck carrying a stained glass window. You’d have to see all 12 packages to piece the story together, which not only lets the sommelier start a conversation, it encourages wine-bibbers to collect all 12 bottles.