19 Crimes Wine: The Story, the Range and the Talking Labels

19 Crimes is a wine brand from Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) built around the convicts Britain shipped to Australia, with their portraits on the labels and an augmented reality (AR) feature that makes them “talk” through your phone. The range runs from inexpensive Australian red blends and Shiraz to California wines made with Snoop Dogg. Most bottles cost about $10 to $20 in US stores. This guide covers the story behind the name, how the talking labels work, what’s in the range, what it costs and what critics have said.

The story behind the name

The brand’s own history page explains the premise. Under British law, people found guilty of at least one of 19 crimes could be sentenced to “Punishment by Transportation” instead of death. Transportation to Australia began in 1787. Many convicts died at sea, the brand says, and those who survived became colonists who helped build a new country. According to 19 Crimes, transportation to Australia was chosen after the American Revolution ended the practice of sending convicts to America, at a time when Britain’s cities were growing, its prisons were crowded and petty crime was rising.

The page backs this up with a few numbers: of 15,379 cases heard at London’s Old Bailey courthouse between 1780 and 1800, 13,789, about 90%, involved theft or violent theft. Its list of 19 numbered items touches on crimes and laws such as mail theft (made a felony in 1767), counterfeiting, bigamy and the theft of shrouds.

Each bottle carries one of 19 corks, distributed at random, each named after one of the crimes. In our view, that small detail is a clever reason to keep buying the brand.

The convicts on the labels

The brand’s “Crew” page profiles the people it features. A few of them:

Convict	What the brand says	Where he or she appears
John Boyle O’Reilly	Sentenced to transportation in 1867; wrote poetry on the voyage and later escaped to America	19 Crimes Red Blend
Michael Harrington	British conscript turned convict who organized the 1876 Catalpa escape, rowing out to an American whaling ship	19 Crimes Cabernet Sauvignon
James Wilson	Court-martialed for desertion and mutinous conduct; death sentence commuted to life with hard labor; left Ireland on the last convict ship to Australia	The Banished Dark Red
Jane Castings	Convicted in Leicester of receiving stolen cheese and bacon; transported in 1846 to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania)	Her story is told on the Hard Chard page
James Kieley	Took part in the Catalpa Rescue; sentenced to life in Western Australia; pardoned in 1905	19 Crimes Shiraz

The Catalpa Rescue ties several of these stories together, and the brand returns to it often. If you want to read the convicts’ stories in full, the Crew page is the place.

How the talking labels work

19 Crimes calls its labels “augmented reality that’s actually based on reality.” The brand’s AR page sets out four steps:

1. Buy a bottle.
2. Scan the QR code on the back label.
3. Point your phone’s camera at the front label.
4. Watch the character on the label come to life and tell his or her story.

The feature started as an app. In a June 2018 interview with Shanken News Daily, TWE’s then global marketing chief said the company launched the 19 Crimes app in July 2017 and called it the first of its kind in wine. The app, called Living Wine Labels, had been downloaded about 1.3 million times by then, and TWE had also added Living Wine Labels content for other brands such as Beringer Bros. and Chateau St. Jean. Today the brand points you to the QR code, so check the back label of your bottle for the current route in.

The celebrity wines have their own AR twists. TWE says the 2022 Snoop Cali Rosé launched with an AR experience at askthedoggfather.com, where you could ask Snoop questions and hear his answers, and the Universal Monsters Halloween bottles have glow-in-the-dark AR labels featuring Frankenstein, the Bride of Frankenstein and the Mummy.

The 19 Crimes range

The brand’s online shop groups its wines into a Classic Collection and special ranges. Prices below are the brand’s own shop prices in October 2026; stores often charge less.

Wine	Style	Brand shop price
19 Crimes Red Blend	Red blend	$13
19 Crimes Shiraz	Red	$13
19 Crimes Uprising Red Blend	Red blend	$13
19 Crimes Pinot Noir	Red	$13
19 Crimes Cabernet Sauvignon	Red	$18
19 Crimes The Banished Dark Red	Sweeter red	$20
19 Crimes The Warden Red Blend	Red blend	$20
19 Crimes Hard Chard	White	$20
19 Crimes Sauv Block	White	$20
19 Crimes Universal Monsters (Cabernet, Chard, Red Blend)	Halloween limited editions	$18

A few notes from the brand’s product pages:

• Red Blend: described as rich and round with a soft, fruity finish and notes of chocolate. Target lists it as an Australian red blend at 13.5% alcohol.
• Shiraz: described as full and round with a subtle sweetness, and flavors of raspberry, dark plum and chocolate. Shiraz is the Australian name for Syrah; our guide to Syrah vs Shiraz explains the difference.
• The Banished Dark Red: the brand calls it distinctly sweet, with dark chocolate, cloves and dark fruit.
• Cabernet Sauvignon: described as firm and full, with dark berries, violets and vanilla.

If you like the house style, our guide to red blend wine covers similar soft, fruit-forward reds, and our Australian wine guide explains the country’s regions and label terms, including the broad South Eastern Australia zone that appeared on the 2013 Red Blend Wine Enthusiast reviewed.

Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart

According to TWE, Snoop Dogg first joined 19 Crimes in 2021 with a red blend, and Martha Stewart became the brand’s second celebrity face the same year. TWE’s March 2023 release lists awards for the most successful wine launches for Snoop’s Cali Red, Cali Rosé and Martha’s Chard, and for Snoop Cali Gold, a sparkling wine, and says the brand passed 5 million cases in global sales in 2022. For scale, Shanken News Daily reported in 2018 that 19 Crimes had grown from 100,000 cases in 2014 to over 1 million cases in 2017, citing Impact Databank.

Target lists Cali Red as a California red blend at 14.1% alcohol, and ShopSK’s listing says it combines Petite Sirah and Zinfandel. In October 2026 the brand’s own shop showed its Snoop wines as sold out, with a notice that “Cali by Snoop is moving” to its own site, calibysnoop.com.

Universal Monsters

TWE announced in October 2025 that the 19 Crimes x Universal Monsters collection was returning for a third year and expanding from a US launch to markets across EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa), Asia, Australia and North America. In October 2026 the brand shop listed a Universal Monsters Cabernet Sauvignon, Hard Chard and Red Blend at $18 each.

What 19 Crimes costs in stores

We checked regular (non-sale) prices at US retailers in October 2026:

Wine	Store prices (checked Oct 2026)
19 Crimes Red Blend	$9.99 at Target; $10.99 at M&R Liquors, Manchester, Connecticut
19 Crimes Snoop Cali Red	$12.99 at Target; $11.99 at ShopSK
19 Crimes The Warden Red Blend	$19.99 at Target

Prices vary by state and store, and the brand’s shop ships its imported wines only to a list of states, so a supermarket or liquor store is usually the cheaper way to buy.

Is 19 Crimes wine good? What critics say

Professional reviews of 19 Crimes are rare. The two we could open:

• 19 Crimes Martha’s Chard 2021 (California): 91 points, Wine Enthusiast (November 2022 issue), a Best Buy at $14. Reviewer Jim Gordon found a deft touch of oak, with toasted bread, light butter and ginger over golden apple and pear. It is 13.8% alcohol.
• 19 Crimes Red 2013 (South Eastern Australia): 83 points, Wine Enthusiast (October 2015 issue). Reviewer Joe Czerwinski called it well made but a bit confected, with simple black cherry fruit.

Both reviews are for old vintages. We found no published critic score for a current release, so under our Blue Book Value method we don’t give any 19 Crimes wine a value verdict. In our view, the brand is best bought for its story and its labels, as a fun gift or a party bottle, rather than as a critic-approved bargain. If you want a red with a recent high score for a similar price, our best wine under $20 list has several.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age. Please drink responsibly.