Wine: Purple Angel

[Mike Buckley]

The Carménère grape species was largely thought to be extinct until the past couple of decades. Thinking was that it had become so when the great Phylloxera plague in the 19th century wiped out so many grape vines in France. Fortunately, some vines had been grown in Chile prior to the plague, which is where almost all Carménère grapes are grown today. Interestingly, perhaps the main reason they survived in Chile is that they were mistakenly thought to be Merlot grape vines. For those who like Bordeaux red wine, consider that Carménère was one of the original Bordeaux grapes along with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec.

I've only had this wine a few times over the past five years but each time it has been very rich in taste and has had a gorgeous inky look. The only wine I've had that is consistently richer is Amarone, an Italian wine made from grapes that have been dried after harvesting about halfway to the point of becoming raisins. This wine is made of 92% Carménère and 8% Petit Verdot and is the only wine I've ever had that is made primarily from Carménère.

Setup
The background is a purple shirt. A medium continuous-light lamp above the scene on the left side lit the background, foil and the label. A flash light lit the label from the right side. The reflection on the right side of the bottle was created by hand holding a strip soft box at an angle to a sheet of translucent vellum. (There was insufficient room in the tight constraints of my makeshift studio to put the strip soft box on a light stand, which is what I usually do.) The speed light in the strip soft box was fitted with a purple gel.

[selig1656]

Difficult to see the bottle's boundaries , pretty neat pic

[bje07]

nice and subtil lights, (as usual), if I had taken I have also taken the top of the bottle, but I'm not at your level

[Wavelength]

Beautiful... the purple colour patches of design on the right bottom part of the label is a bit unwelcome for me though

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured, blends well with the background.

[mugge]

Mike, a different approach this time with the the purple colours dominating.
Cheers Ole

[bnnrcn]

IMO the dark colors make the white label main subject of the shot.Purple is such a nice color that IMO that bottle would make some other nice images with some contrasty backgrounds like red, orange or yellow

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you, everyone!

IMO the dark colors make the white label main subject of the shot.Purple is such a nice color that IMO that bottle would make some other nice images with some contrasty backgrounds like red, orange or yellow

Completely agreed, Binnur. If I make another image, it will probably include the purple reflection on the bottle and a background and perhaps tabletop comprised of warm colors. I was tempted to do that in the first place but decided instead to make my first photo of a wine bottle that uses purple as the clearly dominant color.

[madcrow]

Mike, I like the overall effect and colour.

[NorthernFocus]

Nice one, Mike. As others have pointed out the label stands out such that the bottle itself is very subtle.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Dan and Maurice!