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W i n e s & V i n e s O C T O b e r 2 0 1 4 31 Getting personal As spectacular as these lenticular labels are, the newly released Scratchpad brand already has garnered even more attention from distributors and retail outlets, according to Terravant Wine Co. sales and marketing vice president eric Guerra. An offspring of Terravant's Switchcraft brand, current Scratchpad releases include a 2011 Central Coast Chardonnay, 2012 Central Coast Sauvignon Blanc and 2011 Central Coast Pinot Noir, all retailing in the $10-$15 range. The package won a double-gold medal at the 2014 San Fran- cisco International Wine Competition. Sporting probably the plainest label you'll ever see, the attraction to Scratch- pad is that it was cleverly devised to encourage interaction: The full-wrap paper label is mostly a blank slate, with only the tiniest brand name, varietal and vintage on the face and "instructions" on the back, written in the style of the game "MadLibs." "Your chance to be creative is in front of you. Grab a glass, pencil and go for it. This Scratchpad label is your open canvas to express yourself and inspire the world. Images or writings, it's up to you. Sketch it, snap it, post it. #scratchpadcellars." An essential part of this package is the small graphite, pre-sharpened pencil fas- tened with more helpful instructions via rubber band at the bottleneck. "Doodle. Post. Sip. Please use our label to share your own creations!" "The necker is the push button," Guerra said. "When you're marketing to middle- America, you want to hit it over the head. We needed to make it simple" for adop- tion by the Facebook/Instagram world. The paper is a rough, "bucket-strength" stock, 60-pound estate 8 from Collotype labels. The texture was chosen as a vehi- cle for the graphite pencil, which renders high-contrast, photo-ready images. Guerra devised the package with Terra- vant creative director Matt Valine. "We found the stock with the best scratchpad feel to it: It's not glossy, not resume paper." With minimal wording and no artwork, "The trickiest part was the die-cut," Guerra recalled. It looks like it was torn from a typical spiral-bound notebook, with die-cut shards that appear to have been ripped from a scratchpad. In the end, this works surprisingly well. "If we lose one or more of those little dudes, it looks normal." "Interest has been enormous" since Scratchpad's mid-2014 release, Guerra said. "We are targeting 20,000 cases for next year." Along with national distribution, at least one branch of the Ruth's Chris Steakhouses wants to promote it as a spe- cial every Wednesday—a tasty business proposition: Wouldn't everyone at the C O V E R S T O R Y die cuts on the edge of scratchpad labels mimic the look of paper torn from a notebook. Bottles of scratchpad come with a pencil for consumers to design their own labels, while the spin the Bottle label creates the illusion of movement. Pepperwood Grove is topped with a Zork closure.