The design creates a brand family by combining distinctive design for the different products with a strong central identity unified by color, typography, and humor. Each varietal has a differently shaped or colored bottle and a different illustration. For unity, all the labels are set low on the bottle, all but two of the cork capsules are cream-colored, and all the UPCs are worked into the illustrations in clever ways. In fact, there are little visual jokes all over the place, such as the year of the wine, 2002, set on the license plate of a truck.

Other details support the products and the story. The earth tones of the illustrations reflect the colors of the wines. The typography, in a slightly tortured old style font, is tossed around like steeples in a “controlled” blast, but you can read it because it’s big and is generally set on monochrome backgrounds.

The name change and new packages were first steps. Brandever followed them up with a marketing campaign with its own bits of wit. The winery store isn’t a pseudo-chateau, but a log cabin with a steep, snow-shedding roof, frankly adapted to the British Columbian climate. Or how about the Midnight Service they host at the annual Okanagan Fall Wine Festival? It’s not in the old church (that probably would be blasphemous, even if Jesus did turn water into wine). Instead, it’s in the winery’s cellar and features the Gospel Experience Choir, food from Vancouver’s Memphis Blues Barbecue House, and, of course, lots of Blasted Church wine.

The firm has also done more conventional promotion, entering wine-industry competitions as far away as London and Los Angeles, and getting extensive coverage for the owners in trade publications. But any disciplined and experienced marketing team can do that: Wit makes the difference here. Over the few years Brandever has been in business, they’ve found that a witty name change and redesign alone can boost sales as much as 525 percent. The key is to find the right story. www.dirtylaundry.ca

For a vineyard whose new owners came from a background in high finance, they chose the name Laughing Stock. The bottles were screenprinted with small labels that look like stock listings— the contraction LFNG sits over numbers for the vintage year. Other text and numbers wrap around the bottles like ticker tape. The name itself has a bunch of meanings. Laughing says entertainment; Stock refers both to the inventory and the owners’ former careers; the full phrase is slyly humble. Any negative connotations are undermined by the sleek, delicate design. www.laughingstock.ca

Then there’s the winery at the southern tip of New Zealand. The name was easy: Earth’s End. But what of the label? This unknown winery needed something that would get a lot of attention, fast. The national obsession here is rugby, and the New Zealand All Blacks happen to be world champions—undefeated for over a decade. They open every game with a Maori war chant, “A, ka mate! Ka mate! Ka ora! Ka ora!” (Will it be death? Will it be life?) Standing in a strong half-squat, they slap their thighs, punch the air, scowl, pound their chests, and generally scare the pants off the opposition. What better theme for the end of the earth? www.otagowine.com

In every case, the witty story and presentation create powerful distinction. As shoppers scan racks of wine or wine lists, the name and the graphics stop them. “What does that mean?” They almost have to pick it up and find out. Once they know the story, they’ll never forget it. After that, it’s up to the wine.