Gusbourne vineyards are located at 51° North, which is now regarded as optimal for growing the grapes required to make the finest traditional method sparkling wine. More importantly, the wine embodies all the expertise and wisdom Gusbourne has acquired over their twenty-year journey. It’s available online, at Fortnum & Mason, and at many of the UK’s finest restaurants.

We created the visual and verbal identity and delivered all associated collateral. A launch event in London capped off the strategic and creative work we’ve put into developing this product over the last six years.

Fifty One Degrees North has a unique sense of time and place. Its origin is the culmination of different forces aligning in harmony: the soil, the climate, the vision for the product, and the people behind it. This was fundamental to telling its story.

Our involvement started right at the beginning, when Fifty One Degrees North was nothing more than an ambition. Over six years we took this ambition and transformed it into a singular product identity. Our strategic team shaped the narrative with support from our client: we collaborated on a story that stayed true to the wine’s origins, consistently told through every iteration of the project.

The narrative is not the result of happy accidents; it’s entirely intentional. Every word and every aspect of its design captures the idea that this vintage is born from the meeting of a narrow set of conditions.

It can be challenging to come up with creative solutions that look simple in execution. The packaging needed to be more than functional; it needed to encapsulate the brand and its backstory. We admit it: we initially got it wrong. Three years into the project we realised our packaging ideas didn’t meet our objectives and were unworkable, at odds with a brand rooted in sustainability.

We weren’t afraid to start again. The sophisticated, yet deceptively simple packaging echoes the wine’s journey. Like other Gusbourne products, the label wraps around the entire bottle. The eye is immediately drawn to the black lines that meet in the middle, a reference to the meeting of time, place and opportunity. It also subtly invokes the flag of St George, a nod to the brand’s English roots. We believe good branding doesn’t have to be obvious but hints at layers of meaning.

As we’ve said before, our vision is not the result of accidents. Several years ago, geographical coordinates became a focus within Gusbourne communications and branding, a concept we could bring to life with Fifty One Degrees North. Even back then, we considered how the art direction could be interpreted for this special vintage.

All the visual assets were the result of this careful consideration. What’s more, we developed the Fifty One Degrees North page on the website with the use of contemporary animation techniques that pushed us to go further as a studio and experiment with design ideas. But we can’t take all the credit. Every time we thought we’d gone as far as we could, our client pushed us to go one step further.

This wine’s route to market was a singular journey and that required a singular approach to unveiling it to the public. Our three-floor experiential launch event showcased our attention to detail, carrying through the theme of extraordinary circumstances coming together at just the right time. With a small budget but big ambitions, we chose an art gallery in London’s Soho as the venue for a group of hand- selected guests.

Fitting for an art gallery, we commissioned fifty-one framed photos capturing 20 years of Gusbourne history as well as every single detail leading up to the wine’s launch. A singular black line that bisected the wall referenced the bottle’s design and concept. The result? Understated elegance, just like Fifty One Degrees North.

Only one thing left to do – pop open a bottle of England’s most expensive sparkling wine...

These are the projects we love most – the opportunity to create product personalities from scratch and then witness them come to life and flourish. We watch people buying into, adopting and becoming passionate about products we’ve created. It’s a thrill to see Fifty One Degrees North achieve well-deserved recognition.

“Wondersphere have been our partner since the beginning of this remarkable journey and we have valued their insight, creativity and understanding of the English wine industry at every stage of this project.”

Jonathan White, Head of Marketing

We are Wondersphere, a strategic brand and communications agency.

We work without borders across graphics and identity, exhibitions and interiors, products and packaging, websites and digital experiences, communications and much more.

Our work is about elegant design and craft; but its success and impact is based on our ability to align to the needs of our clients’ organisations in order to add measurable value to the bottom line.

To find out how Wondersphere would be able to add value to your organisation, please get in touch.

francis@wondersphere.com
+44 (0) 7515 353916

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