A bold, flavoursome brand identity for natural wine purveyors, Native Vine

Synopsis

For our latest project, we partnered with Bristol-based natural wine purveyors Native Vine, to produce a charismatic brand and website that re-imagines the experience of wine selection.

Native Vine champions exciting natural and biodynamic wines, stocking a range of unique, organic and vegan wines from small-scale producers. Specialising in wines from lesser-known regions and independent vineyards, Native Vine is passionate about strengthening the connection from vineyard to glass. With ambitions and plans to expand out of their current residence within the Bristol Loaf, Native Vine approached us with a branding and digital challenge.

Brand

Digital

A new wine buying experience

The world of wine is hugely varied, and with that comes the challenge of choice and understanding. Native Vine’s point of difference against competitors is their relationship with producers and genuine interest in educating people about great wines.

Our task was to make Native Vine more accessible to a wider audience. To cut through the jargon and put the fun back into wine buying.

With the huge variety of natural wines comes a wonderful array of colours and hues. This is something that Native Vine are passionate about showcasing in their shop, where wines are arranged by colour gradient. So this informed the underlying concept for the visual identity.

We built a palette that was broad, vibrant, and reflective of a diversity of colours and flavours. We then used Matisse-inspired paper-cut graphic shapes to signify tasting notes.

All together the visual identity feels disruptive, fun and oozing with character.

An imperfect custom typeface

Our hero brand font ‘Blazing Sun’ captures the imperfectness of natural wines and the hand-crafted feel that carries through the branding.

We customised it by building a full set of accents, to ensure it was fitting for Native Vine’s international roster of wines and winemakers.

Demystifying the world of wine

Native Vine’s enthusiasm for demystifying wine is infectious. The layout of the website is mosaic and flexible, unencumbered with rigid grids so that the character can shine. The overall feel of the site is playful and down to earth. It breaks down any preconceived notions of stuffiness you may associate with a sommelier.

A virtual wine sommelier

Online, we worked with Native Vine to develop an interactive wine finder tool with personality. Using the in-store experience of wine selection as a starting point, we re-imaged the experience for a digital space. The online journey allows you to discover your ultimate match based on colour preference, occasion and food pairing, to create a flavour profile that matches you to 3 bottles with a varying price range.

With most of the wines being from small-scale makers, the titles of the wines have very little weight. So, instead we placed emphasis on customer reviews. These were framed to be much more akin to how you might describe a wine to a friend. The result is an experience that completely re-imagines wine selection online.

I would highly recommend Fiasco for their creative excellence and professional approach. The team are warm, friendly and focussed. I felt we were listened to and our ideas respected. Criticism was met professionally without defensiveness. The creative ability of the team is exceptional and the ideas have been engaging and exciting. A range of options have been presented and honed based on feedback which was clearly carefully considered.

Dan Briggs, Founder, Native Vine