AuTerroir

German viticulture has undergone a radical transformation over the last fifteen years. Climate change is bringing new challenges and chances: while some sites suffer from draught, other vineyards profit and can accommodate varieties of grapes previously alien to northern latitudes. On the other hand, a new generation of winemakers is taking over long-established wineries, bringing in new ideas on cultivation methods, the wines they want to produce and their marketing.

This is also true for the company featured in this post. AuTerroir is a small family business located in the very southwestern corner of Germany, bordering France and Switzerland. The region of Baden, where winemaking was introduced by the Romans, is a prolific stronghold in Germany’s wine industry, benefiting from warm air streaming north through the Burgundy Gate.

Since 2019 AuTerroir have shifted to the exclusive production of natural wines which implies ecological methods of cultivation, waiving pesticides and almost any form of additives to the final product. The winery cultivates two vineyards, the Mauchener Ruchmatt and the Auggener Liesten which is one of the steepest vineyards of the region, with a slope up to 58°. The respective degrees of slope are at the heart of AuTerroir’s marketing concept, discerning between the two terroirs they cultivate, each offering different soil composition, light exposure and grape varieties.

The visual identity of AuTerroir is based on a high-quality photography uniting authentic motifs with elegantly desaturated colors and an interesting mix of contemporary typefaces. On the wine labels the most prominent player is Columbia Sans Display by Production Type. It is also used for the the logo lettering and as headline style on the website where it is combined with GT America by Grilli Type for the reading text.

Columbia Sans is a sans-serif with marked stroke contrast. It draws its historic references from a variety of sources and blends features of French Renaissance types with later models that evolved in the Lower Countries. Noteworthy here are the special characteristics of the display size of Columbia Sans, providing a larger x-height and narrower proportions in order to achieve best impact in headlines.

Especially in the all-caps use seen here, Columbia Sans conveys a very elegant French notion that is perfectly in line with the brand identity. In that same way Baton by Fatype renders the additional text on the bottles, harmoniously rounding off the visual concept that bridges tradition and innovation.