Whether or not someone prefers their red bold and leathery or light and fruity depends less on their taste buds, and more on the judgement of others. Wine preferences are often shaped by ratings, reviews or opinion.

In fact, blind taste test studies have shown that these factors all influence what a person thinks of a wine before they even try it. If a wine is not lauded by so-called experts in ratings and reviews, the perception is it can’t possibly be any good.

So when 13th Street Winery wanted to encourage drinkers to try its wines, the Ontario vintner worked with Lg2 to help eliminate these external influences so that people would try something new and come to their own conclusions about its wines.

To do so, it introduced Subjectif, a series of 12 wines, identically priced and uniquely designed to reveal the varietal only after a person was done drinking it. The bottle’s unique die-cut label revealed whether the wine was a merlot or pinot noir, for example, only when light passed through the glass, thereby eliminating the possibility of any external judgment of the wine.

The initial limited run of Subjectif cases sold out in less than a month. The success prompted the winery to triple the amount and the brand plans to relaunch the initiative in the spring of 2020. More importantly, Subjectif led drinkers to return and request the 13th Street specific varietals – based on their own opinion.