Designed by Edward Pearson, GRAFIKART | Country: Chile
“The story behind this brand, which was begun by a gentleman called Rigoberto Rodriguez Rodriguez in the late 1800’s is as follows:
The story is quite funny, Rigoberto was the son of the founder and being of a well read and refined personality had a great sense of humour and also was rather eccentric. He ventured in making these piscos and wines and gained great reputation. He started storing these wines in Niches – thus the name ‘Los Nichos’ specially made for keeping the right temperature.
He would gather at the distillery with his friends who belonged to the more distinguished circles of society and in the hot summer afternoons they would drink away but had some quite specific set of rules.
You were admitted vertically but you had to leave in horizontal condition.
Once you were drunk or horizontal, Rigoberto would write a poem in the form of an epitaph. The friend would get buried metaphorically in one of the niches–again the name ‘Los Nichos’. As your friendship matured you were allotted a personal Niche where you would go collecting very rare bottles of exclusive harvests or distillings, this granted you access to the cellar 24 hours of the day. So it was common that visitors turned up at unearthly hours to have a drink. Their collection of bottles was safely guarded in their personal Niche and having a strong relationship with death and all its beliefs once this really occurred they were supposed to look after their collection from beyond.
When Rigoberto died this poem was written for him:
Fue don Manuel Rigoberto, de estos Nichos hacedor
Y enterró a muchos vecinos de este valle productor,
Murió por fin de la cura más madre que se pegó
Y llegó a la sepultura sin saber quien era Dios,
Por eso que esté en el cielo como un castigo de nota,
De sus vinos exquisitos no le da a probar ni gota.
Roughly translated:
T’was Manuel Rigoberto the maker of these Niches
He burried many neighbours of this productive valley
He finally died completely drunk
And got to his grave without knowing God
As a heavenly punishment
Of his exquisite wines he isn’t given a drop
So when you visit the distillery high up in the Elqui Valley, down in the cellar it’s full of these niches with very funny poems describing how each of his friends got drunk over 100 years ago.
The brand needed refreshing thus the new design, all lined up with extreme simplicity. The two flourishes one depicts the Spirit which is more subtle in form and the other for the Farm where the idea is the energy from the universe and the energy from the earth meeting in the middle. One Pisco is designed slightly smarter than the other for product quality difference. The design is printed directly onto the bottle.
The design leap is quite significant but its really served its purpose as its had tremendous acceptance in the Pisco drinking community.”
