Nevio Scala: a wine you read one step at a time
Brand, labels and first website for Nevio Scala’s farm and winery. An identity that plays with words, but never loses its elegance.
In short
Nevio Scala is a farm and winery in Lozzo Atestino, in the province of Padua, Italy. Opificio Lamantini Anonimi created its brand, its wine packaging and its first website: an identity that brings elegance and authenticity together through play, from the staircase logo to labels such as “Novecentonovantanove”.
Project facts
- Client
- Nevio Scala farm and winery
- Location
- Lozzo Atestino (Padua, Italy)
- Sector
- Wine
- Services
- Brand identity, packaging and labels, first website
- Wines
- Gargànte, Dilètto, Còntame, Monemvasía, Novecentonovantanove
Elegance, land, authenticity and a smile: four souls that don’t usually share a label. We brought them together through play. It starts with the name, which steps down like a staircase.
The starting point
How do you tell the story of a wine that has to be elegant and authentic at once?
In wine, the risk is well known: labels that are all elegant and all the same, or authentic and careless. The Nevio Scala brand had to hold together four souls that rarely live side by side. It does it through play: with words, with names, with letters. A serious game, played with elegance, that makes whoever discovers it smile.
What happens when a surname becomes a shape?
It becomes a staircase, which is what “scala” means in Italian. First name and surname interlace and step down, one step at a time.
In the logo the letters of NEVIO and SCALA alternate, one by one, and step down diagonally like the steps of a staircase. The surname becomes the shape. There is no need for a symbol: the symbol is the name.
How do you give each wine its own character without losing the family?
With the sound of the words. Gargànte, Dilètto, Còntame: the accent on show, the way they are said here.
White, essential labels. The wine’s name large, with the accent on show. Beneath it, a giant translucent letter that you can only read up close. At the top, the staircase logo, small.
The glass and the colour of the wine do the rest: every bottle is different, all of them speak with the same voice.
Gargànte, Dilètto, Còntame, Monemvasía: words with the accent on show, which sound like the land they come from.
Can a label be made of the wine’s name?
Yes, if you repeat the name enough times. The nine becomes a pattern, the pattern becomes the label.
For Novecentonovantanove, Italian for nine hundred and ninety-nine, the label turns black and more precious. The front has no illustrations: it is built by repeating the nine, “nove” in Italian, until it forms a pattern. The wine’s name becomes its texture.
The back label explains the name: Novecentonovantanove is the cultural association with which the company shared years of experiences. The wine comes from the cabernet franc and merlot vineyards, in 2017, their first year of production.
On the back, the label tells the story of the wine in a long text, to be read slowly. On the side, the staircase logo and the wine details return.
Front, pattern detail, back label and side.
A second version of the label, with the pattern in dark grey.
What was the company’s first website like?
The same tone as the labels, taken online: the land, the wines, the people.
The first Nevio Scala website told the story of the company, the produce of the land, the area and each wine with its own fact sheet. Lots of white, photographs of the fields, the wine names large as on the labels. It is no longer online: here we show it as it was.
Frequently asked questions
Nevio Scala and Opificio, in short.
Who created the brand and the wine labels for Nevio Scala?
Opificio Lamantini Anonimi, which also created the farm’s first website.
What does the Nevio Scala logo represent?
The letters of the first name and surname, NEVIO and SCALA, alternating and stepping down diagonally like the steps of a staircase. In Italian, “scala” means staircase.
What is the Novecentonovantanove label?
It is the black label of a Nevio Scala wine, designed by Opificio Lamantini Anonimi. Novecentonovantanove is Italian for nine hundred and ninety-nine: the nine is repeated until it forms a pattern, so the wine’s name becomes its texture.
Does Opificio Lamantini Anonimi design wine labels and packaging?
Yes. For the Nevio Scala farm in Lozzo Atestino it designed the logo, labels and wine packaging.