Packaging Substrate / Materials: Glass bottle
Printing Process: Soft touch laminate, raised varnish This is probably one of the funniest and hilarious project ever done by me – maybe equally crazy to Lozeto. It’s a design I was commissioned to create for a Pet Nat produced by Orbelia winery. We did not do any brief about this project – all was decided in a short lunch break at the Doctor’s Garden in Sofia. All we wanted was something very fresh, very colorful, yet memorable and of course full with emotions. I really got my inspiration after this meeting and I did more then 5 completely different designs for Pet Nat. We picked the best and most provocative one as it reflects the philosophy behind Pet Nat wines.
Melnik, Bulgaraia (Shutterstock)
In the years when I was a frequent face in Bulgaria, the wine region I liked most was Melnik in the south-west of the country, just north of the Greek border at Fort Roupel. It was the hottest region in Bulgaria and centred on the Struma Valley. Surrounded by steep mountains, the hillside vineyards were unsuitable for the collective
kolkhoz treatment meted out on the plains south of the Balkan Range, where quantity had triumphed over quality. The eponymous broad-leaved Melnik cultivar was interesting, not least because it was not one of the international “Mac” varieties favoured in many places elsewhere. There was also a variation in the “Melnik 55”, a hybrid grape created in 1963, which had an advantage over its parent for being an early-ripener.