Consider This: A Better Way To Brown Bag It

Though there's been no shortage of eye-catching wine labels and graphics to hit liquor store shelves lately, major props go to Stranger & Stranger for looking beyond the bottle.

"We're bored with the lack of innovation in the wine aisles so we're releasing some really different ways of packaging wine in the next six months," explains Kevin Shaw, founder and creative director of the London and NYC-based design firm (the same one responsible for Compass Box Whiskey's stellar bottle and packaging design). Shaw and his team elevated the humble brown paper bag that liquor store purchases often get shoved in to create illustrated outer jackets that properly deserve to be shown off.

"This was an idea I had last year and I got together with a winery [Truett-Hurst] I was doing some labels for, and presented the idea to Safeway, who jumped at it," Shaw added. The 100-percent recyclable, tear-free paper layers, designed to correspond with the wine bottles' labels (also designed by Stranger & Stranger), feature recipes and illustrations, along with facts and miscellany appropriate to the wine or a potential drinking occasion.

The wines, currently available at Safeway grocers, come by way of Sonoma Valley's Truett-Hurst winery, including a pinot noir, a chardonnay, a rose, a sparkling wine and a red blend, with more rolling out at other outlets in the next few months.