Encore Wine Labels Named ``World's Best;'' Wins Top Honors in Two Major Design Competitions.

Business Editors/Food and Wine Writers

NAPA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 2003

The Encore wine label, designed by a graduate student at the San Francisco Academy of Art, has been awarded two prestigious awards including "World's Best" at the 13th World Label Association Awards Competition and a coveted Gold Medal for design at the 2003 Los Angeles County Fair Wine Competition.

Encore is a new wine brand created by Delicato Family Vineyards from some of the best fruit grown on the winery's San Bernabe estate vineyard in Monterey. The Encore family of wines includes Encore 2001 Red Medley, Encore 2002 White Medley and Encore 2002 Rose' Medley priced at about $17.99.

The Delicato marketing department, seeking an innovative solution for the Encore package, created a competition for fourth-year graduate design students at the San Francisco Academy of Art. A scholarship was offered to the winning design as selected by a distinguished panel of commercial designers, marketing experts and members of the Indelicato family. Under the direction of Michael Osborne, instructor, and founder of Michael Osborne Design based in San Francisco, seventeen entries were submitted. The winner, as selected by the judging panel, now appears on Encore bottles. Inspiration came from the jazz music often associated with the Monterey lifestyle.

"We sought an unusual and elegantly unique design that expressed the remarkable quality and innovation our winemakers had captured in the bottle," said Kym Johnson, Delicato Brand Director. "To be successful in today's difficult and highly competitive wine market," she added, "there must not only be great quality in the bottle, but eye catching, powerful imagery on the bottle as well! These awards validate our efforts."

The "World's Best" award was presented by The World Label Association at the recent Tag and Label Manufacturers Institute (TLMI) meeting in Scottsdale, AZ. The award represents what the industry considers "the best of the best" in both design and production technique. Judging was limited to winning labels from three major competitions (TLMI, Japanese Federation of Label Printers (JFLP) and FINAT, which represents European labels). Entries were judged against each another in a variety of categories by a panel of industry leaders. The Encore wine label won in the Multi-Process Line Category - one of the more difficult and complicated printing processes.

"We are pleased to share these awards with our client, Delicato," said David Buse of Collotype Labels, Napa, Ca., the printer. "The Encore design looks deceptively simple, but required a great deal of state of the art technology and skill to produce. We utilized offset lithography on uncoated stock, special varnishes and screen inks. This design required absolutely perfect registration."

In addition to the label, the wine itself has been winning major awards in domestic and international competitions. Most recently, Encore 2001 White Medley won a coveted gold medal at the Dallas Morning News Wine Competition.

For more than 75 years, the Indelicato family has been growing fine wine grapes and today, currently harvests more than 10,000 acres of vineyard estates across the top regions of California.