(via) Last year at the Gold Medal Plates cooking competition Vancouver chef Alex Chen of Boulevard back-wrapped bottles of 2009 Foxtrot Pinot Noir to pair with his dish. The clever, well-designed two pager detailed what he’d served us judges (a truffle-scented ballotine of chicken with umami consomme), and though it played no part in Alex winning the competition (which he nevertheless did), his use of the back label still left an impression. I was reminded of this today when I saw these Librottiglia wine bottles, which are artfully front-wrapped with multi-paged short stories by design firm Reverse Innovation:

Three writers were selected to contribute to the project, each bringing their unique style to their matched wine. Journalist and satirist Danilo Zanelli contributes the mystery “Murder” to a Roero Arneis, “The Frog in the Belly,” a fable by Patrizia Laquidara is paired with an Anthos, and Regina Marques Nadaes’s love story “I Love You, Forget Me” compliments the winery’s Nebbiolo Roero.

Though I don’t think I’d be down with reading too much Italo Calvino from the back of an ungainly bottle it nevertheless opens the door for pairing recipes, vintage descriptions, winemaker notes, and so on. Story-telling is a natural way for wineries to stand out in a crowded marketplace (witness Blasted Church, Laughing Stock, etc), so it makes novel sense to do it right on the bottle instead of in a paper statement that may or may not ever make it to the end consumer.