Portugal equals Port wine, right?! This statement is dead on for so many of you, but this wasn’t the case if we go back a few generations. In the 1940s, there were two brands that epitomized Portuguese wine to the global market: Mateus and Lancers. Both wines were presented in uniquely shaped bottles that appeared to be created for one purpose only, to hold candles, which consequently, made them unforgettable. Roses and slightly sweet, both labels helped shape a generation of wine drinkers, appreciated for their icon value than for their sophistication or “rating”.

Lancers
At the end of WWII, Americans wanted a beverage to toast in celebration without having to drink the bold European wines of the age. Inspired by Antonio Soares Porto’s creation of a light rose called Faisca, Henry Behar sailed to Portugal in 1944 to visit Maria da Fonseca. Suggesting that they market Faisca to the American public as both a versatile and refreshing wine that is spec, Fonseca stuck a deal with Behar’s distribution company and launched the emblematic rose wine, Lancers.

What is of particular interest to me is how the original name and shape of the bottle morphed into what we know it as now. As a result of the wine’s baptized name, “Faisca” being too close a bedmate to Fiasco, they canned it entirely for a fresh new name based on the title of Behar’s favorite Velasquez painting, “Las Lanzas”. The shape and material of the bottle, however, was based on a marketing ploy to offer Americans something easily distinguishable from other wine bottles of the time. The campaign was extremely successful causing sales to soar over 1 million bottles in th 1970’s, there was a slight problem. Ceramic breathes. And when ceramic breathes, it allows oxygen …