CIRQ. Deconstructing a Wine Label.

After Terry’s talk last week I found myself reflecting on the wine brands (and other products) that have stuck with me over the years. I realized that they all had a strong storytelling component, reinforcing Terry’s point that successful brands are all about telling an authentic, sticky story.

One salient example I thought I’d share with the class is Michael Browne’s label CIRQ. Michael Browne is best known for being the winemaker at Kosta Browne, an ultra premium California Pinot Noir producer. I was given a bottle of Kosta Browne Pinot by my boss as a present after a promotion and I was floored. I had never tasted a wine that spoke to me like this one did.

I naively went online to try and join their wine list, before I learned one does not simply join the Kosta Browne wine list. They have a waiting list of 3-5 years (!) to get an allocation of their single vineyard Pinots. Years later, I was lucky enough to get to visit Kosta Browne with a small group as part of a silent auction prize. Who did we see walking around the winery but Michael Browne! I ended up chatting with him for a bit, and he started bringing out wines to open for us (no this was not a dream!).

He absolutely lit up when he started talking about CIRQ, his foray into viniculture. While this wine is part of the “Kosta Browne family,” it is a separate brand. Kosta Browne sources the very best grapes from the best vineyards in Russian River Valley, while CIRQ is Michael Browne’s new side project to become a winegrower himself. He spent years finding two new sites in the western edges of Russian River Valley for this new venture, and the land he found is extremely special to him. Michael told us about his time performing in the circus in Wentachee, Washington as a young child, and how he learned to master several stunts to entertain his audience, making parallels between the physical and mental training required for both performing in the show and for mastering winemaking. And thus, CIRQ was born.

In thinking back to that story now, I realize that 1) it’s interesting he decided to make CIRQ a standalone brand and 2) you can easily see how a circus theme could have gone horribly wrong. On the first point while it might be tempting to leverage the strong Kosta Browne name for his new project, Browne was really taking a risk to try his hand at viniculture. As we’ve learned in class, a reputation takes years to build and can be destroyed in an instant. On the second point, it’s clear that Browne went through great pains to carefully think about branding and packaging for this wine to keep it out of gimmicky territory.

“CIRQ is a performance that happens once per year. A show that we are constantly rehearsing, sharpening our skills for and anticipating delighting you with.” - Michael Browne

The back label is made to look like an old time circus ticket, signed and numbered by Michael Brown himself. He has also turned his own handwriting into a font, and the label has a craft, hand-made quality to it. He explained that the small thin line under the name of vintage was color matched to the very unique soil in each location, emphasizing the importance of the terroir. He's created high quality videos that tell the story of each region and of the brand, tying everything together. Each allocation of wine also comes with a handwritten note from Browne and beautiful packaging. These small details stuck with me, and made me a convert before I even tasted the wine.