diff --git a/requests/models.py b/requests/models.py
index 136427fe..ae3c1be1 100644
--- a/requests/models.py
+++ b/requests/models.py
@@ -413,7 +413,10 @@ class Request(object):
         if not scheme in SCHEMAS:
             raise InvalidSchema("Invalid scheme %r" % scheme)
 
-        netloc = netloc.encode('idna').decode('utf-8')
+        try:
+            netloc = netloc.encode('idna').decode('utf-8')
+        except UnicodeError:
+            raise InvalidURL('URL has an invalid label.')
 
         if not path:
             path = '/'
diff --git a/tests/test_requests.py b/tests/test_requests.py
index f43ccac8..3bbcfdf4 100755
--- a/tests/test_requests.py
+++ b/tests/test_requests.py
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ from requests.compat import str, StringIO
 from requests import HTTPError
 from requests import get, post, head, put
 from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth, HTTPDigestAuth
+from requests.exceptions import InvalidURL
 
 if 'HTTPBIN_URL' not in os.environ:
     os.environ['HTTPBIN_URL'] = 'http://httpbin.org/'
@@ -1062,6 +1063,10 @@ class RequestsTestSuite(TestSetup, TestBaseMixin, unittest.TestCase):
         """Test that `bytes` can be used as the values of `files`."""
         post(httpbin('post'), files={'test': b'test'})
 
+    def test_invalid_urls_throw_requests_exception(self):
+        """Test that URLs with invalid labels throw
+        Requests.exceptions.InvalidURL instead of UnicodeError."""
+        self.assertRaises(InvalidURL, get, 'http://.google.com/')
 
 if __name__ == '__main__':
     unittest.main()