The October Tasting
Vendor guide · Allen Street, Hudson
If you are reading only one part
- Whoever prints it
- Risograph, one ink. Not offset "to be safe", not four-colour.
Where the red presses harder it goes deeper and where it is thin the paper shows through — that is
the process telling the truth, and it is the same thing the painted floor does.
- Anyone pouring
- The six wines are poured in a fixed order and the flight card
exists to make that order impossible to get wrong. Do not re-sequence, do not pour ahead, do not
let a guest skip. Rafael says what a wine is only after it has been drunk.
- Anyone setting the room
- Two long tables pushed end to end under a low ceiling, in a back
room they only use in October. Bottle tags hang on the necks so a guest can go back and find the
one they liked without having to ask.
- Anyone tempted to make it smart
- Please do not. It is descended from a paper placemat with
red ballpoint on it. No calligraphy, nothing metallic, no second colour, and nothing that
reads as a wine brand.
The event
- Date
- Saturday, 17 October 2026
- From
- Half past six
- Where
- The Bellamy residence
Allen Street, Hudson, New York
- The room
- A narrow 1890s brick house with a back room they only use in October. Two long
tables pushed together end to end, under a low ceiling.
- Guests
- 18
- Dress
- Come as you are
- Replies by
- 3 October 2026
The visual identity at a glance
Thin on the boards#A63A2B
Typefaces: Yellowtail for the wine names and the line at the top, EB Garamond
for everything a guest reads.
One red on cream. Rafael's grandmother's kitchen in Régua had a painted floor — red and cream
squares, done by hand so no two are the same size, the paint thin enough in places that the boards show
through. That floor is the palette and it is also the pattern. There is no second colour.
Match to the printed piece, not to these squares. These are screen values, and risograph never
matches a screen: the ink sits on top of the paper and shifts with how hard the drum pressed. If you
are matching anything, hold the real card.
Stationery arriving
| Piece | Trim | How many |
|---|
| Invitation | 5 × 7″ | one per household |
| Envelope | A7 — addressed by hand | as invitations |
| Save the date | 5 × 7″ | as invitations |
| Tasting flight card | 110 × 210 mm | 20 |
| Menu card (the plates) | 4 × 9″ | 20 |
| Place card | 2 × 3.5″ folded | 20 |
| Table number | 5 × 7″ | 2 — the two tables |
| Welcome signage | 24 × 36″ | 1 |
| Bottle tags | 55 × 90 mm | 6 — one per wine, plus spares |
| Thank you card | 4.25 × 5.5″ | one per household |
18 guests plus a margin. The bottle tags
follow the wines, not the guests — there are six, and they hang on the necks.
Day-of notes
Two printed lists, and they must not look like one thing split in half.
The plates are one card. The six wines are a different card, and that one is the spine
of the evening: they are poured in that order, and the card is how a guest who knows nothing follows
along. Each wine says what it actually tastes like in Rafael's words, not in wine words.
- The painted floor
- On the back of every piece that has a back. That is deliberate —
turning a card over and finding it is the moment the evening explains itself. The squares are
uneven because a person painted them; making them regular undoes the only thing they say.
- The order
- Fixed, and the flight card is designed so it cannot be misread. Rafael tells
you what a wine is only after you have finished it — that is the whole ritual and it started
because he did it to Margot on the third night they knew each other.
- The bottle tags
- Hang on the necks so a guest can go back to the one they liked without
having to ask. Do not put them on the table or in a rack.
- Why October
- Rafael has run this every October since his grandmother died in 2020 — six
wines, in order, one small plate against each.
- Material
- Risograph in one ink on uncoated natural, hand-addressed envelopes. No foil, no
embossing, no finishing of any kind.
Please do not
- No calligraphy of any kind.
- No gold, no copper, no foil, no metallic, no embossing.
- No grape-cluster border, no vine scrollwork, no laurel, no crest, no monogram, no wax seal.
- No barrels, no corkscrew-as-logo, no wine-label pastiche, no vineyard landscape, no rolling hills.
- No photographs of anything.
- No chalkboard lettering, no burlap, no kraft, no twine, no string-and-tag rustic.
- No second colour.
Margot's own list, and her standard: “I want it DRAWN,
in one red pen, by a person.”
Questions about anything on this sheet
Ask the studio directly rather than working around a detail —
hello@evorrah.com. Files for anything listed here can be sent
to a supplier on request.