Wine labels can be a little like cryptic crosswords: unfathomable, infuriating and intimidating. Browsing the shelves of one of my favorite local wine merchants, a cozy little shop in London where the wines are stacked in bins that stretch from the floor to the ceiling, I was faced with a scrambled collage of labels. There were wines with chickens on the label, wines with etched drawings of Neo-Gothic houses, brightly colored Impressionist-style labels, watercolors depicting far-off vineyards or simply the name of a French village written in attractive, bold font. Some wines had the name of the grape variety clearly marked across the label, but on the whole the display presented a pretty mysterious picture.