Online Labels Forum

I've been making wines for approximately 8 years, give or take a few glasses. Normally I'd label my bottles with whatever I had. Tape, cheap labels, or even the preprinted labels. I might even make a crafty neck hangar if a bottle was to become a gift. Usually, the bottle sits around naked though.

The Naked Bottle Look


A few weeks ago, I finally decided it was time to get one set in stone design to use for all of my wines. So I started looking around at different label companies. I looked at many different ones, but I kept coming back here to onlinelabels.com more and more to look around. Once I realized I kept coming back here to look, I decided there must be something here I like. So I pulled the trigger and ordered some samples. Before I get into what I ordered, I want to say that along with the order I asked a question. This was at 6:11pm on a Tuesday evening. At exactly 7:45pm I received an answer from Erica. At first I thought, "Hmmm.. They must be in California!" I was shocked to find them in Florida. Same time zone as I was! Very impressive. I wasn't expecting an answer until the next day.


The samples I ordered and received quickly were:
OL475 4" x 5" weatherproof polyester.
OL150 4" x 3.33" clear gloss
OL544 3.5" x 2.4031" arched top, white gloss
All of these were for a Laser Printer.

After some discussion here, I crossed off the clear labels. That's not going to work with wine bottles without a $4000 laser printer that has white toner. I also found the arched top labels were too small for my taste and crossed those off. I really liked the 4" x 5" size, but what material should I get?

I got a hold of my graphic designer and told her we're going to be up all night! She's actually still working on a new logo while I type this. Luckily, she'll work straight into the morning for me. Best of all, she won't charge me a penny for it, I pay her bill with wine!

Full disclosure: She's my daughter.

We've been emailing ideas and files back and forth for the past 6 hours, she's been in Photoshop, and I've been in the Maestro Label Designer right here at onlinelabels.com. I took a photo of my field out back last year, and my wife loves the photo, so that's what I went with. We bounced many different designs and fonts back and forth until we decided on one that works. Finally we came up with a design.



She made several different colors of the same design so I could change the text at will. This took approximately 45 seconds to get this new looking label with the Maestro Label Designer.



As the design was starting to come together, I was printing from Maestro onto regular sheets of paper and then holding them up into the light with a sample page of labels to see if I was lined up properly. I thought I was going to have a slight physical margin problem with my printer, but it turned out just fine when I actually ran the labels through the printer.

Having been a certified HP printer technician in a past life, I have taken apart and removed labels from various rollers and components inside way too many printers. So my biggest concern was whether or not the labels could detach from the backing and get stuck inside my printer. I'm very glad to report, I doubt this would ever be a problem with these labels.

I have a Brother MFC-9970CDW Laser Printer. The printer driver has a Label Setting, so that's what I used. I ran both the weatherproof polyester and the white gloss labels through. I can see no discernible difference in print quality. Neither one will smudge with my fingers. I'm happy with both, but I'm going to go with the weatherproof polyester. It is wine, and we do stick them in ice sometimes.



However, if you've actually read this far, I know what your biggest concern is.

"Can I remove the labels easily to reuse the bottle?"

Well...

I put a label on, and removed it rather easily with no glue residue left on the bottle. However, the label would be deemed unusable as I rolled the edges with my fingernail to get a grip on the label to pull it off. It did not tear, and came off in one piece. This was immediately after I put the label on, so this couldn't actually be a true test.

After I get done typing here, I'm going to print some more labels and put them on more bottles. I'm going to set one in the wine fridge, one at room temp, one in the regular fridge, one in the freezer, and one outside. It is suppose to be 75 degrees here tomorrow, I'll make sure it's in the sun. These are extremes for wine, so should be good enough for testing purposes.

I'll report back tomorrow night with my findings! Hopefully I'll have a new logo by then too! I've also got her working on three fun wine label designs.

1. Skeeter Pee (Lemon wine)
2. Spider Sweat (Lime wine)
3. Rock on the Range (For the wine we take to Rock on the Range every year!)

Keep making wine!
Rob

Edited by user Saturday, April 12, 2014 2:28:24 AM(EST)  | Reason: Not specified

Well, I couldn't bottle the Liebfraumilch today, I bumped the carboy on the way out of the pantry and the lees mixed in. It'll be fine in a week or two. I really should get a filter.

So I managed to bottle the Gewürztraminer, Moscato, Lodi Old Vine Red Zin, and the Edinburgh Scottish Ale. It's the first beer I've ever made. The Skeeter Pee is still clearing, and I'll start the Spider Sweat tomorrow. I still need to bottle the banana wine and banana pineapple wine still.



But no one cares about my wine, lets get back to the labels!




From Left to Right
Water Soaked Bottle
Sun Soaked Bottle
Room Temp Bottle
Refrigerated Bottle
Freezer Bottle

The printing was still perfect on all of them and I couldn't smudge the printing on any of the labels.

With the exception of the water soaked label, they all stuck firmly to the bottle.


The water soaked bottle was a little loose around the edges, but it was still firmly hanging on. A few more days in the water, and it may have slipped right off. This isn't a bad thing, as that's normally how winemakers remove the labels. We soak them in water.

However, there's no need to soak these labels to remove them. Every single one of them came off cleanly with no adhesive residue on the bottle.

I know this isn't the greatest picture, but you can see there's no residue on the bottle, and all the labels came off cleanly without tearing.

That's about it! All the labels that were tested were the Weatherproof Polyester label for the Laser Printer. To me, with the laser printer I have, it's the perfect wine bottle label! It sticks to the bottle under all extremes, yet removes easily with no adhesive residue on the bottle. Reusing wine bottles just got a lot easier! I highly recommend these labels!

Wondering what happened to the bottle that was soaking in the parts cleaner?

Well... You really shouldn't store your wine in a tub of Naptha. But if you want to know, there was some slight pitting on the print. The label was really hard to remove, and there was a little bit of adhesive residue on the bottle. Actually quite impressive for soaking in Naptha though!


My daughter also sent the final logo today, along with the Skeeter Pee Design! I'm excited anyway.




Keep on Making Wine!
Rob

My final thoughts:

I really like these labels. I'm putting my order in soon!

Thanks! Thought it might help any winemaker decide on which label to get. Having a label that really sticks, but is able to be removed easy is the one thing we all want! You guys definitely have a winner here.

I only wish I could sell that Rock on the Range wine in the parking lot during the Rock Festival. I would be able to retire in 3 days. HA!

RJ - Thanks for the update. I am glad to hear that the project is going well.

We have some experience with removing labels from wine bottles. Here is a video that we created on the topic:

http://www.onlinelabels.com/Videos/how-to-remove-and-apply-personalized-wine-bottle-labels.htm

Keep us updated on your project. Thanks again.

Dave

It's been a year, give or take a couple days, since the first labels from Online Labels went on. The labels are a little bit harder to pull off now, and they leave a little bit more adhesive on the bottles, but nothing to complain about. They clean off easily with oxyclean and water. Still love the labels! No smearing, no fading.

We're smack in the middle of becoming a federally bonded winery as Benfield Winery, LLC. As such, the graphic design department has been hard at work getting a logo for us. There's been about 87 iterations of the logo, but it's finally done.



I did have about 300 bottles of wine that needed labels, but can not be used for the winery business. While this isn't the final label design, as I'll leave that to the professionals, this is what I came up with just to label what will ultimately be my last "Homemade" wine. The days of reusing wine bottles have also ended.




Over the past few months numerous amounts of people keep asking, "Can I buy your wine yet?" Not yet, but it's coming! Guess all the free wine we've given out as gifts over many many years was good marketing strategy. People I don't even know who tasted the wine from someone I gave a bottle to are dying to buy a bottle. Word of Mouth. Can't beat that!

Edited by user Saturday, April 4, 2015 8:54:01 PM(EST)  | Reason: Not specified

Yes! Saw that on G+ when you posted it. Told my daughter her labels were now famous. She thought it was awesome! Thanks!

Firestar - Can you provide some additional details? Let me know answers to the following questions and we can try to make some recommendations.

Do you clean the surface of the bottle before labeling it?
What is the temperature of the bottle at the time of labeling?
How is the bottle stored after it is labeled?
Is the bottled exposed to a lot of humidity or moisture while being stored?
Can you upload an image of the rippling to this forum post?

Let us know and we can try to trouble shoot the issue.

Thanks.

Dave C.
OnlineLabels.com

Thanks for the post. Great to hear more about how you are using the labels and that you are having success with the white polyester material.

Dave C.
OnlineLabels.com