Bodega Cuatro Rayas adds braille to wine label

An organic Verdejo produced by Rueda wine cooperative Cuatro Rayas now features braille lettering to help people with visual impairments read its label. The front label on Cuatro Rayas' Green & Social (G&S) Verdejo uses lettering from the Braille alphabet to communicate details about the winery, grape variety and vintage to visually impaired people. The featured braille also includes information on the Rueda DO. According to Cuatro Rayas the decision to include braille was made because the wine cooperative "represents the livelihood of 383 families in rural areas and is actively engaged in the effective promotion of equality between women and men in that environment."

Braille beginnings

An early iteration of braille was established in 1819 by Charles Barbier, a former French soldier in Napoleon's army, when he developed raised point writing. Also known as 'night writing', it was a system that allowed the military to communicate in the dark without using candles, by instead cutting notches into paper with a knife to indicate the placement of letters. This system was then adapted by Louis Braille a decade or so later to create a reading and writing system for the blind. The first guide to using braille was published in 1829, with added symbols for numbers and music created by Louis Braille, who was himself blind. Launched in 2020, G&S Verdejo uses organic grapes harvested mechanically at night and fermented in stainless steel vats. The wine, which has "fresh and balanced citric and balsamic aromas" typical of the variety, is also vegan friendly. Besides the writing in braille, the paper used for the Verdejo's label is recycled and FSC-certified, while the capsule is 100% recyclable aluminium and free of plastic, and the closure has a zero carbon footprint.

VR pruning tool

The Rueda cooperative has never been afraid to pioneer new innovations. Last year, db reported that Cuatro Rayas was using cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) to train staff how to prune vines. The VR simulates a number of different challenges viticulturists face in a real vineyard, and staff are given virtual reality goggles and "sensorised pruning shears" with which to practice. Using VR allows staff to get the hang of the complex procedure without risking the health of real vines, which are vulnerable to contracting grapevine trunk diseases such as Eutypa dieback during pruning.