Christmas Wines 2023

Intro

Seasons greetings to one and all. 

This year was a strange one, likely in part because of that whole covid fiasco and what it's done to us all. Without going into all the details of that I'd like to present something a bit more pleasant, the wine stories and labels we came up with for this year.

Wine

My brother and I got together for a couple of picture shoots for this years wine labels and stories. In the one it shows us sitting on the porch of an old building in Goodwood, Ontario (I'm told it was one of the sets for the Schitz Creek series). I liked it so much that I sent the picture to my friend Sid in BC who did the black and white conversion and added type. We liked that version of the photo so much that it immediately became the label for one of the wines. 

 

I played around with the type a bit more, added the wine bottle to the porch and voila, there it was.

For the story line we flushed out (or just plain flushed) a story about the two incompetent musical brothers.

 

I checked with Sid to see whether it was okay to use his alter ego as the music agent and he agreed. In some ways the story becomes more about him than us but that's okay too.

It goes like this.

 

 The Last Great Campbell Brothers' Squirt Gun Caper

The second idea for a label this year was actually a series of labels for this wine wrapped around another stupid episode of the Campbell Brothers. Another credit has to go to my friend Sid who contributed the 'Revenge Served Cold' photo that he had taken of Ralph and I from a few years ago in Unionville Ontario.

 

Again that lovely building in Goodwood, Ontario is featured. Also featured is the old police van parked at the back of the mini golf course at the Big Apple in Colborne, Ontario (not New York). You can't make this stuff up, really.

 

 

Here are the labels.

 

Squirt Gun Caper, Caught, Revenge Served Cold

 And the story, prepared as a pamphlet, went something like this...

 

 

 

 

And that, as they say, is it.

 

Hope you get a chuckle out of the offering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Wines 2022: Delusions of Grandeur and Brotherlands

 Christmas Wines of 2022

 

This has been another rough year for most of us. Another year of virus, of war, of incompetent politicians, rising inflation and a whole ten yards more.

 Ralph decided to make a red wine for this years offering and I volunteered to contribute toward a white wine. We had fun coming up with the ideas for episodes concerning those bumbling Campbell brothers. We hope you enjoy too...

Delusions of Grandeur

Ralph came up with the name first, he wanted his wine to be titled 'Delusions of Grandeur'. Okay by me.

The elements for the picture were drawn (or pic-ted really) from a couple of sources. The background was a picture I had taken years before of the throne room of Edinburgh Castle in Scotland with a few embellishments. The 'Game of Thrones' throne was taken at a place previously mentioned in the blog, Primitive Designs, located near Port Hope, Ontario.

On the handout, or pamphlet, I used another shot from Scotland, from the Castle Campbell near Dollar. I lined up a couple of outhouses with silhouettes of courtly figures, added a 'garderobes are us' sign, and Bob's your uncle.

The label, once completed, looked like this...

Hail to the king, Delusions of Grandeur

And the story goes something like this...

For the white wine I took inspiration from the video game I've been playing (for years), Borderlands. I thought it would be a nice twist of reality to have... well, you'll see. 

 

I took some game shots, some of me and my brother (I'm still amazed at how versatile my living room is for photos in spite of all the clutter in there). I also used a background from a misty field located near my brother's place, and, oh yes, a picture of a metal rhino taken from you know where.

Brotherlands

Instead of a single label I produced a set of three:

 

Their story is linked in the pamphlet.

And there you have it, this year's installments of the not so epic Campbell brothers' sagas.