Artfully photographed glasses of wine are all over Instagram — but a new collab between two digital age favorites encourages social media-savvy wine enthusiasts to put a whole new spin on these classic kinds of posts: Winc wines and Instagram poet Atticus have joined forces to create Lost Poet, a wine that comes either with poetry on the label — or with a spot for you to scrawl your own words of wisdom. It’s available for purchase at Winc’s website starting on Feb. 5, and, uh, something tells me it’s likely to go pretty fast. Poetry + wine + Instagram certainly sounds like a winning combination.
Love him or hate him (and there are plenty of people on both sides of the aisle), there’s no denying that Atticus has become something of a phenomenon; one of the most recognizable faces of Instagram poetry — metaphorically speaking, that is; he never appears without a mask — he boasts a following of one million on the social media platform, gathered over the course of about six years and still growing now. His posts feature a clean and timeless aesthetic, each made up of a handful of lines and occasionally a photograph, typically in black and white. He first began posting to Instagram in 2013, and has released two books of poetry over the past few years — Love Her Wild in 2017 and The Dark Between Stars in 2018.
Winc, meanwhile, began not too long before Atticus first arrived on Instagram. Launched in 2012, the company aims to make wine more accessible to everyday humans. Its signature offering is a subscription service; after answering a few questions about your taste preferences, you get sent recommendations tailored to suit your profile, with four bottles shipping out to you per month. You can also buy bottles directly from the Winc website without a subscription, although you get discounts if you’re a member.
One of Winc’s more unique features is that it actually produces the wine it sells, rather than just purchasing it — which, apparently, was a smart decision to make: According to the Los Angeles Times, the 300,000 cases of wine Winc was expected to bottle in 2018 would likely have come out to around $72 million in revenue for that year. (The company “declined to discuss revenue” with the Times, but the paper arrived at that estimate by pegging the average cost of a Winc bottle at $20.) Summer Water — Winc’s rosé — became a full-blown hit, selling around 36,000 cases, per the LA Times.
And now, both of these modern day phenomena — Atticus and Winc — have teamed up for what might just be the most aggressively millennial collab we’ve seen in a long, long time: Wine meant to be Instagrammed as much as it’s meant to drunk, with an iconic piece of Instagram poetry on each bottle.
According to a press release provided to Bustle, Atticus has “always [been] enamored by wine” — indeed, wine has long been a running theme in his Instagram posts — but found his “initial interest [growing] into something more when he began studying wine and pursuing his preliminary sommelier credentials.” (It’s not clear whether Atticus actually has achieved sommelier credentials, but that’s the narrative the collab is running with.) Said Atticus in the press release, “A good bottle of wine should take you on a journey. It should make you feel something. I wanted to work with Winc because they’re not only passionate winemakers, but storytellers as well. Wine is poetry, and we want to help others write their own stories richly.”
So, together with Winc’s Director of Winemaking, Ryan Zotovich, Atticus and Winc came up with Lost Poet, a red blend they describe as “delicious, versatile, and made for easy drinking.” 70 percent cabernet, 20 percent merlot, and 10 percent syrah, the blend’s notes include blue fruit, violet, and spice.
But what’s in the bottle isn’t the wine’s only feature. The bottle itself is also meant to be noticed. Mimicking Atticus’ Instagram aesthetic, the glass is dark and the label white; the word “POET” jumps out in large, black capital letters, although the word “LOST” also clings to the very top of it. Atticus’ signature has been scrawled along the bottom.
On the backs of the labels might be one of three Atticus poems — or a blank space for you to write a poem of your own. If you’re already well-versed in Atticus’ work, the poems will be familiar to you; the options include “Thinking of you is a poison I drink often,” “Come on darling, it’s never too late to begin our love again,” and “I hope to arrive at my death, late, in love, and a little drunk.” Above the blank space on the bottle with no poem is written, “Wine is poetry, write yours.”
You’ll be able to buy bottles directly from Winc for $17 a pop if you’re not a member of the subscription service or $15 if you are; additionally, a Collector’s Pack featuring all four bottles and a few other bells and whistles — an art print, a signed copy of The Dark Between Stars, and a temporary tattoo — will set you back $99 if you’re not a Winc member and $89 if you are.
Lost Poet is not, of course, the only wine with… let’s call it an interactive label on the market now; indeed, this gimmick seems to be a rising trend, with each company putting their own unique spin on it: Some have developed scratch-and-sniff labels; others have built in augmented reality technology; and still others have created labels you can color in while you drink. There’s nothing wrong with a simple bottle with a regular label, of course — but there is something to be said for creative packaging. After all, what better pairing is there than wine and art?
