Let's face it. At one time or another we buy a bottle of wine because of the LABEL. The color, the style, the creature on it grabs our attention and says BUY ME! Sadly, many bottles that look good on the outside don't taste good on the inside.

But that's not the case for a line of German wines making a long awaited and much anticipated debut in the Indiana market.

Indianapolis architect Jim Lingenfelter of Five2Five Design Studio designed my wine shoppe five years ago. At the time he told me about his German wine making cousin , Rainer Lingenfelder, and gave me a bottle of Rainer's Pfalz region riesling to taste. It was delicious so I started talking with some local distributors to see if they would bring it in. A month ago my rep Angela with Vino LeFebvre distributing sent me an email that said, "We are getting Lingenfelder wines from Germany soon. Would you like to try them?"

So two weeks ago we tried the wines. I invited Jim and his wife Georgia to taste them with us since they knew cousin Rainer's work first hand.

The first thing I noticed about the bottles was the label. It looked like a fairy tale tapestry from a European castle with soothing, rich colors, flora, fauna and a critter or two. Turns out the labels were designed by one of the best in the business, California label designer Chuck House.

We opened and tasted the wines. The label conjures up images of a fairy tale but the juice inside is a pleasurable reality of balanced fruit, acidity and style. So, how does a wine from Germany get a label designed by a guy from California and end up in wine shoppes in the Midwest?

"He saw us as what we are: grape growers strongly connected to the land and the vineyards for over 13 generations," says winemaker Rainer Lingenfelder via an email interview (Oh, how I love 21st Century journalism!). "So you find vines on the label and the soil, that's what makes a truly authentic wine - not the winemaker. Chuck then added a little creature, an element of light-heartedness and fun".

The little creatures include a hare on the Gewurztraminer, a fish on the Mosel riesling, a bird on the Pfalz riesling and a fox on the dry style red, dornfelder wine. Rainer's talents for creating customer friendly wines were a success and so was the label. So much so, that customers didn't ask for the "Lingenfelder Riesling" they asked for the fabulous bird label. When it came time to add the stelvin screw cap to the bottle, Rainer gave them the bird too-so to speak.

"As I didn't want to spoil the label which had already been designed and I didn't have the money to go back to the artist to develop an icon for the capsule I did it myself," says Rainer. "Based on the Lingenfelder font I sent the screw cap manufacturer the words "bird label" and drew a silhouette of the bird based on the artist's original design. The added benefit for retailers was that from the cap the wine was easily recognizable in the rack."

You'll be able to spot these creatures and a lovely sweeter style of dornfelder wine called MAX at select wine stores in the Indianapolis area. Here are the ones that have finally found a loving home on The Wall of Wine at 878 Massachusetts Avenue.