When buying a bottle of red or white wine, a great number of consumers rely on the presentation and information that’s printed on the label, to help them make an informed choice. It’s therefore no surprise that in the wine industry labelling machines are considered to be an essential piece of production manufacturing kit.
On a wine bottle, a label is much more than a sticker that helps the potential consumer to identify the brand. For a winemaker’s product to stand out in the competitive market, wine bottles must features labels that provide valuable information about the winery’s location, along with tasting notes and alcohol content.
Wine Label History
The earliest labels to ever be recorded were discovered in the dusty tombs of Egypt’s ancient pharaohs. Back in 1550 BC, the Egyptians labelled their vessels of wine with hieroglyphs on papyrus (paper) that were typically stuck on with a dab of sticky honey. These functional labels provided details of the year the wine was made, along with the region of origin, and information about the wine’s quality.
Europe’s wine industry boom, in the 19th and 20th centuries, coincided with the emergence of mass printing. Winemakers began to decorate their bottles with elegant, distinctive and visually appealing labels, to attract a wealthy clientele.
In the decadent 1970s, many French wine merchants commissioned famous artists, such as Chagall, Kandinsky and Picasso, to create extravagant wine bottle label art.
The location source of a red or white wine, and its vintage, are key indicators that continue to inform and influence the buying and imbibing decisions of today’s consumers.
Modern Day Labelling
It’s estimated that around 82% of modern day wine connoisseurs generally base their wine selection on the appearance of the bottle and its aesthetically pleasing label. On a wine bottle, a label is much more than a sticker that helps the potential consumer to identify the brand.
To best serve customers, winemakers design striking labels that embody the quality of their product whilst showcasing the intricacies of a particular type of wine, and highlighting its character and the quality of the brand.
As wine bottles are often stored in chilled, cold, damp, wet and icy manufacturing and storage environments, it’s important that the label material used is of the highest quality. For labelling machines to be worth their investment, they must be able produce wine labels that won’t slide off the bottles, or develop moisture blisters. For the modern winemaker, high-quality labelling machines can effectively help to maximise business revenue whilst minimising design and packaging costs.
Another sign of the times is the growing number of wineries that are choosing wine bottle labels that are eco-friendly and made from sustainably sourced materials. A label machine that offers flexible printing options and performance speeds can produce thousands of labels per hour. Digital technology also allows printers to create labels with variable images, in crisp, high-resolution.
The most popular materials for wine bottle labels today are glossy white, semi-gloss, or matte white paper stock, stick adhesive transparent, or cream textured parchment.
The overall aesthetics of the wine bottle label should ideally present the brand, and also evoke ‘buy-me’ feelings in the consumer.