We got our first wine account on account of scotch.

Jen was hav­ing scotch in Healds­burg when the bar­tender men­tioned three guys who were start­ing a win­ery. Jen knocked backed her scotch and then knocked on their door. Antho­ny, Dave and Web, had major wine­mak­ing chops but this was their first inde­pen­dent project. Nev­er inter­est­ed in being trendy or main­stream, they just want­ed to make great wine from great vine­yards. A sim­ple label design with vine­yard infor­ma­tion right up front mir­rored Anthill’s focus. We also bucked con­ven­tion with their com­mu­ni­ca­tions by nev­er show­ing prod­uct, and instead rely­ing on evoca­tive pho­tog­ra­phy and illus­tra­tion to tell the sto­ry. The result? Their first vin­tage was 250 cas­es. Eleven years lat­er they pro­duce 7,000 cas­es, sell­ing out every year. Because their brand­ing is authen­tic to them, it has grown with them and remains strong. The label was even fea­tured in SF MoMA’s ​“Design + Wine” exhibition.