Playful design for Petnat sparkling wine — light and cheerful drink rapidly gaining popularity.

In 2018, Pavel Shvets, a prominent Russian winemaker and the founder of the Uppa Winery known for its excellent biodynamic wines, released his own version of Petnat and invited us to the winery to design a label for it.

Going through different ideas, we realized that the most valuable things the label has to convey are a feeling of fun and celebration, and, at the same time, the strong personality of its creator — Pavel Shvets. Therefore, we went against the tradition of creating wine labels by leaving only the winemaker’s name, scattering the letters, and adding tiny dots, shifting all practical information to the counter-label. 

The labels were hand-printed by Pavel Shvets in a silk-screen printing workshop in Moscow. Pavel tried Petnat and captured his sensations by mixing the colors. Then, with the resulting colors, we stamped the paper sheets, picking the foil contrasting the color of each label, and spreading it onto the labels. In the end, we created 18 different color and foil combinations, 18 different stories, readings, and interpretations of the new sparkling wine from Pavel Shvets.

We also wanted to involve Pavel in the creation process, so we invited him to Moscow. By the time he arrived in Moscow, we have already prepared a silkscreen cliche, bought large self-adhesive sheets, and gathered at the printing workshop. At this stage, another curious detail caught our attention: Petnat is never the same; firstly, due to its variable production, the end result depends on the terroir it came from (that's why even two identical bottles taste slightly different); secondly, Petnat is perfect both as a light summer drink or as a New Year's Eve sparkling spritzer.

We decided to reflect this feature in the design. Every time Pavel tried Petnat, he captured his sensations by mixing the colors. Once the colors were mixed, we stamped the paper sheets with the contrasting foils. As a result, we created 18 color and foil combinations, 18 stories, readings, and interpretations of the new sparkling wine from Pavel Shvets.