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University Student Art Selected for Borra Vineyards Artist Series Project

Lodi — April 17, 2013 — Borra Vineyards, of Lodi, has partnered with the University of the Pacific (Pacific)Visual Arts Department, in Stockton, along with MPI Label Systems of California to give university students the opportunity to create a wine label that appears on the Artist Series wines being released this month. Sheng Moua, a junior at Pacific, created the eye-catching design that will appear on the first release of Borra Vineyards Artist Series wines. The youngest of seven children, Miss Moua, a junior majoring in graphic design, is the first in her Hmong family to attend college and has the goal of owning her own design firm. She found the project both exciting and challenging. “I was a little confused, at first, by the combination of numbers and letters that we had to use for our design ideas,” Moua stated. “I knew I had to adapt my ideas to something the winemaker would like on his bottles.” After doing extensive research online of wine labels and contemporary design, she submitted a few different ideas with one becoming the design that was finally selected.

Michael E. Leonard, a professor at Pacific since 2008, was approached by Markus Niggli, winemaker at Borra Vineyards, to develop a design competition to create a contemporary wine label. “I was excited that this was not a one-time deal. It’s a long-term collaboration between the school and Borra Vineyards,” Mr. Leonard said. “I try to marry the instructional material with practical experience through competitions and this was a tremendous opportunity for the illustration class. Students have created movie posters and the University’s Summer Sessions course catalog covers in the past, and I knew it would be a strong competition with lots of talent. Students were not limited to the number of designs they could submit, so there were several to consider.”

The Artist Series project was an idea of Markus Niggli. He wanted to give students a chance to succeed based on their passion and creativity. Niggli, a native of Switzerland, was looking for a sleek, lean, contemporary design that would fit the Vinho Verde style of wine he was creating. “Asking for something that you have no idea what was going to come out made me nervous,” Niggli said. “I didn’t want to give them a lot of direction because if I told them the story behind the numbers and letters, I would have never gotten the design that you see which is based on pure design and nothing else.”

After seeing the first round of designs, he pointed the students to a few different sources to see the modern style of a typical European home. In November 2012, the final design ideas were submitted and the final selection was made. Niggli reached out to MPI Label Systems of California, in Stockton, to partner with Pacific and Borra in producing the final design utilizing the label company’s expertise on how to take the design to the finished labels seen on the bottles.

When presented with the art, MPI wanted to make sure that any recommendations made on producing the labels would maintain the integrity of the design. Many ideas were explored and two were presented to Niggli for consideration. Ultimately, the labels were printed digitally on dull silver foil so that the silver highlights in the design would match the screwcaps and capsules Borra used on the bottles. The central part of the design was embossed to enhance the core art of the design, the letters and numbers given to the students by Niggli. Miss Moua felt that the end result looked like what she had envisioned. “We are pleased to be a part of this ongoing collaboration between the winery and the university,” Doug Lingo, General Manager of MPI Labels of California said.  “With both being right in our backyard, it was a perfect fit and we can’t wait to see what the students create for the next design in the Artist Series.” The next collaborative wine label design competition will start in September of this year with selections in November and the wine release in spring of 2014.

The Meaning behind the Design:

The numbers and letters found in Miss Moua’s design honor Mr. Niggli’s family and heritage. The letter W is the first letter in the name Weesen - Mr. Niggli’s hometown in Switzerland. The letters M, K and B honor the three brothers of his family, M is for Markus, K is for Konrad and B is for Bernhard. The numbers 8872, found in the design, are Weesen’s postal code.


Steve Borra started Lodi’s first tiny bonded boutique winery behind a backyard shack in 1975 on Armstrong Road. Wines are “made” in the vineyard, with prime vine rows ingeniously planted in alignment with the afternoon sun for optimal ripening. The majority of their own estate vineyards have been certified sustainable under Lodi Rules. In the winery, winemaker Markus Niggli uses natural yeast from the vines and natural ML, along with complete bypassing of the press altogether to make the smoothest, most complex wines. Stop on by the tasting room, BorraVineyards.com or Facebook.com/Borra-Vineyards and become a fan.

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For more information regarding the Borra Vineyards/University of the Pacific/MPI Label Systems collaborative project, contact: 
Markus Niggli, Winemaker
209.810.8659, Markus@BorraVineyards.com
www.BorraVineyards.com