How do I print wine labels?

November 3, 2005 4:40 PM

My father has recently started making his own wine. He would like custom labels made that he can affix to the bottles. I have a boatload of graphics software that I am comfortable using but have been unable to find a supplier of printable blanks. How exactly does one go about making labels for wine bottles?
posted by cedar to food & drink (14 comments total)

I reckon if you can print labels on decent paper you can add a simple adhesive to wet labels and they will bond quite nicely with the bottle when dry. same principal as hanging wallpaper.
posted by Frasermoo at 4:46 PM on November 3, 2005

on reflection, use wallpaper paste?
posted by Frasermoo at 4:47 PM on November 3, 2005

on further reflection, any ink-jet printing is no good for above.
posted by Frasermoo at 4:50 PM on November 3, 2005

Wallpaper paste comes off glass to easily. There are a number of adhesives that you can brush onto nice thick stock, something with a good amount of cotton or other non-wood fiber in it. Nix on the ink jet - use dyesub or color laser, so that the ink won't run. Or you can have simple 2-color labels printed litho or letterpress for not too much money.
posted by luriete at 4:54 PM on November 3, 2005

You can order blank adhesive wine labels from Stony Creek Wine Press or have them print from your art files.
posted by jeb at 4:54 PM on November 3, 2005

you won't get a professional print job done for less than a set-up fee + print run so I hope he is making a load of bottles. what about that school glue with the red, weird rubber top?
posted by Frasermoo at 5:01 PM on November 3, 2005

I feel like I'm advertising (mentioned this in the sticker question above) - but Contagious Graphics can print paper stickers that come on rolls - they offer different shapes.
posted by odinsdream at 5:06 PM on November 3, 2005

Ink-jet runs in the presence of water.

Avery do transparent adhesive-backed labels which can look rather nice, and you don't have to worry about the label shape problem too much as they're transparent.

No idea if they're colour laser suitable, though.
posted by Leon at 5:12 PM on November 3, 2005

Design four on a page with the middle horizontal and vertical blank. Get them printed at a place like The Printing House. They have 8.5 x 11" sticker paper. Get them to cut them in half vertically and horizontally and you'll have 4 stickers 5.5 high by 4.25 wide.

Of course, you could put more on a page and get smaller labels.

TPH is pretty cheap. I think it was something like ... $1.35 per page including cutting when I did this about 2 years back. So, for $20 or so he could label 60 bottles or so.

When I did it, I did it for a mix CD and then I wrapped the stickers around back to front on cardboard sleeves. Anyone who was on my cmonkey mefi swap or mailing list last year can speak to the quality. I thought they looked great.

A VERY large PDF of my artwork is here in case I didn't describe it well, above.
posted by dobbs at 5:28 PM on November 3, 2005

My roomate brews beer passionately. He came home from his homebrew club meeting telling me that his colleagues recommended milk (unfortunately he didn't specify whole, 2% or skim, but I'd imagine skim would be the most effective) as an adhesive. It sticks the label to the bottle perfectly and cleans off with no mess.
posted by mullingitover at 5:39 PM on November 3, 2005

We made our own wine for our wedding and got blank labels from the same place we got the corks for our bottles. Printed with a toner style laser printer the lettering won't run. A key feature of the labels we got are they come off easily in the bottle washer. I can't remember what they cost but they must have been fairly cheap as we did our wedding on the cheap and I don't remember the labels being a significant cost.
posted by Mitheral at 5:57 PM on November 3, 2005

If he'd like something fairly professional looking, MyOwnLabels makes really beautiful labels at reasonable prices; depending on how many you order, the wine labels run about $1.00 - $1.50 (in sheets of 6). FYI, they also carry wine boxes and wine bags - if he wanted to give the bottles away as gifts, he could even affixing coordinating labels to the packaging. I'm a big fan of this company.
posted by roundrock at 6:28 PM on November 3, 2005

I wonder if we could do a MeFi bulk purchase?
posted by five fresh fish at 9:59 PM on November 3, 2005

I second MyOwnLabels. I was just at a wedding where there were water bottles with customized labels printed by them and they looked great.
posted by jdl at 5:26 AM on November 4, 2005