Cyrhus wine’s second launch comes in a cylindrical coffret, marking the first time the brand has opted for secondary packaging. On the bottle, the facing label sports varying shades of Persian blue.
French brand Cyrhus was founded in 2021 by entrepreneur Masrour Makaremi. His aim was to revive the thousand-year-old tradition of Persian wine-making that disappeared after the Islamic revolution in 1979 when alcohol consumption was banned in Iran. For the brand’s second launch last September, Makaremi partnered with Bordeaux-based creative studio EXCEPTIO for the packaging design. As the bottle was conceived to tell the wine's story, the studio looked to Cyrus the Great – the founder of the Persian Empire, Persian art, architecture and silverware as an inspiration.
The wine is housed in glassmaker OI’s Bacchus stock bottle with rounded shoulders. Each bottle is numbered from 1 to 559, a reference to 559 BC, the year of the founding of the Persian Empire. They are topped with a natural cork stopper (Amorim).
The facing label (Imprimerie Berjon), printed on Fedrigoni’s Tintoretto Gesso paper, features various shades of Persian blue as a backdrop for the image of the Tomb of Cyrus the Great. The four-color printed label used molding and relief embossing to accentuate the patterns, and was finished with transparent, gold and blue hot stamping.
Meant to replicate the Cyrus Cylinder - a clay artifact considered to be the first declaration of human rights - the cylindrical coffret (Spinnler) with pedestal base is made from Fedrigoni’s Tintoretto Neve cardboard. The structure has top and bottom metal strapping, and is sheathed in laminated paperboard, printed with the retranscription of the stone artifact. Gilded in gold and blue, the coffret is finished with matte varnish. The low-opening box structure with large throat height allowed for a full, one-piece reproduction of the declaration.
Cyrhus wine is made in limited quantities from traditional Shiraz grape, aged in a 300-litre mastic-lined terracotta amphora. To symbolize its Persian heritage, a portion of the wine has spent time maturing in an amphora dating from the Sasanian era. The wine retails at €40.
BottleOI
StopperAmorim
LabelImprimerie Berjon
Label/Box papeFedrigoni
BoxSpinnler
DesignEXCEPTIO
