13 Years of Wine List Designs

At 160 years old, Mentzendorff & Co Ltd is one of the UK’s oldest wine importers, and has a portfolio of leading brands such as Champagne Bollinger and Taylor’s Port alongside many of the world’s leading family-owned wine estates.

Every year, it releases two price lists, and I have designed them for the last 13 years, sourcing stock, and managing the print production.

A paper-lover’s dream, the covers showcase an array of interesting layouts such as double, folded or laser-cut covers, innovative stocks and luxury finishing techniques such as embossing, die-cutting and foiling.

Attention to detail

The 2019 edition was designed to celebrate the company’s move to Bermondsey, and the double cover featured two highly contrasting stocks. The outer metallic cover evoked the industrial nature of the area, while the inner cover was printed on Grape Crush, a sustainable paper made from the byproduct of the wine industry.

The copper foiling was a nod to the famous copper stills used to produce the company’s namesake liqueur, Mentzendorff Kummel.

Bespoke illustrations

Some lists feature my hand-drawn illustrations, such as this blind-embossed vine from 2021. I also created the inner layout template in 2015 and this has been used in-house ever since.