Napa Valley, the seat of California's wine industry, is not exactly a fashion mecca. The pastoral towns dotted around the vineyards are more Buddh-ist than Burberry, more caps-'n'-culottes than Chanel. So slightly tipsy heads turned from cellars to catwalks when it was recently announced that Basso & Brooke, British designers known for their use of fabric decorated with pornographic prints, had been appointed “designers in residence” to Turning Leaf, E&J Gallo's traditional wine brand.

The partnership is the latest example of the hottest trend among young fashion houses: engaging in cross-industry collaborations to boost the bottom line. While it is not a huge conceptual leap to imagine why a fashion designer might be a good go-to person for, say, a rug company, a hotel or even a car, a supermarket wine brand seems a particularly strained variety of mixing and matching.

Admittedly, Basso & Brooke are not the first to venture into the bottle arena. Matthew Williamson has designed for Coca- Cola, Jade Jagger for Belvedere vodka, and Jean Paul Gaultier for Piper-Heidsieck champagne. Yet the relatively sober, non-bubbly wine industry, where even a minimalist label can seem radical, had until now not indulged in such flights of fancy, especially on this scale. As designers in residence (though they're not moving to Napa; it's an honorific), Basso & Brooke will create the wrapping for 2,000 bottles, curate a blog, design some limited-edition umbrellas and a retail installation for a London department store.