The Nine Suns Winery in Napa Valley takes its name from an ancient Chinese legend about restoring balance. It is a rich, evocative story that Uneka helped give deeper meaning to with the product's gift box design.

More than a box, this package is a journey through the topography of China and the Houyi vineyard. By combining layers of fluted corrugate to protect the heavy bottle with meaningful coloration and die-cutting, the inner package evocatively depicts terraced farmlands at sunrise or sunset, while providing important functional benefits. Using minimal graphics, the Nine Suns package both protects and tells a powerful story.

The Nine Suns Winery in Napa Valley takes its name from an ancient Chinese legend. Long ago, ten sunbirds took turns rising and setting each day. One day they grew bored of their routine and all rose together, but their combined heat threatened to scorch the earth. The archer Houyi was summoned to shoot down nine sunbirds, leaving one in the sky to restore balance. With this legend in mind, Uneka aimed to create an elegant gift box packaging for the Nine Suns vintage that embodies balance and reflects the unique, steeply sloping terrain of the Houyi vineyard where it originates.

The outer sleeve is simple and striking, with a full lid filigree stamp of the Nine Suns logo. For the inner package, we chose a telescoping rigid box in soft touch film with a luxurious feel, and used a flood printing base to create the vibrant solar color. Inside the wine is nestled in 16 layers of 1SW B flute cardboard, graded incrementally to create an evocative contour and texture. By pulling each layer back just a little, the design reflects rolling hills and the rising and setting sun. At the same time, the multi-dimensional structure cradles the bottle. As an added visual element, the top six layers of flute are printed with Pantone Matching System (PMS) color, fading gradually from vibrant orange to white—invoking sunrise and sunset.

Just as Nine Suns embodies the wine-lover's experience "from bud break to emptied glass," this simple but sophisticated package design strikes a balance between earth and sun, night and day, beginning and end.