Wine Packaging Overview

Packaging is the first impression of a bottle of wine, and it is also one of the important factors for consumers to decide whether to purchase. With the development of the wine industry, wine packaging is constantly changing.

Glass bottles Currently, glass bottles are still the mainstream of wine packaging. The new technology introduced by the world-famous glass bottle manufacturer Verallia Company meets the customer's small batch production requirements (at least 1500 can be produced per batch), and a variety of products can be customized.

By communicating with Verallia's designers, customers can realize the different needs of glass bottle relief decoration, bottle type, and flat bottom design. In terms of color alone, Verallia offers customers a variety of options, such as antique green, champagne green, deciduous green or meteorites. This personalized bottle is also very popular with wineries or wine merchants. Most of them will choose this custom wine bottle when they launch new product launches, market tests, release commemorative editions or limited edition products. At the same time, wineries generally mark brands and trademarks on wine bottles. Some American AVA producing regions will also mark the name of the producing area on the bottle, and their member wineries share the cost.

In addition, Verallia also redesigned the production equipment, greatly reducing the relevant production procedures for wine bottle decoration, not only shortening production time, but also effectively reducing production costs.

Even though some wines now use etched labels, most of them use traditional paper labels. In order to protect the integrity and aesthetics of the label, the manufacturer will also “wear” and “waterproof” the label.

California's Labeltronix is ​​a trademark printing company that introduced two new labels: the Midnight Vellum and the Arctic Shield, which can reduce wear and tear accordingly.

Midnight Vellum is an uncoated black matte solid material. Its own adhesive backing is also black. Therefore, even if a crack appears in the process of transporting and handling the label, it will not affect the external effect of the label. This makes the rub resistance of this material perfectly reflected. Midnight Vellum requires layered inks for its production, but it is less time consuming than digital or flexo printing.

For wines that need to be chilled before drinking, such as dry white or champagne, the waterproofing of wine labels is necessary. Arctic Shield is a white uncoated paper label. Arctic Shield, like other materials, can be printed, stamped, embossed, and embossed, but only when it is labeled. The trademark printing company once put the bottle with such a label in the refrigerator and ice bucket for testing. After two days, the wine label was still intact.

Although Midnight Vellum and Arctic Shield are slightly more expensive, they are still welcomed by many wineries.

The box-in-box packaging of box-in-box wines is a kind of packaging form composed of a flexible inner bag with a sealed faucet and a carton outer package, and its characteristics of being environmentally friendly, affordable, and easy to transport are welcomed by the market.

Watermark Designs Inc. of Charlottesville, Virginia, USA, provides design services for wine box bag packaging. One of their customers is Virginia Wineworks Winery. After Virginia Wineworks's products were packed in boxes, the market responded well. The first 4000 litre box-loaded Chardonnay has been sold out for $36/box (3 liters). The company also plans to include Weioni and Cabernet Franc wines into the boxed wine list.

It is understood that box-in-box wines are very popular in restaurants. The reason is that due to the structural airtightness, the bag-wrapped wine in the box can still be stored for 2 months in a suitable environment, which greatly reduces waste. In addition, due to the unique packaging form, the bag-in-box wine is easy to carry and easy to open, and it is also very popular with young people.

In addition, Watermark Design's Lacy said that the design of the wine label should also take into account the characteristics of the consumer group. According to statistics, women are the main consumers in the US wine market, so the label design should be neutral or slightly female, but it should be noted that too male or feminine wine labels are not the best choice. Wineworks's distributors also confirmed this view: They have significantly increased masculinity by modifying the label (the picture is the taste of two male winemakers).

Lacy also stated that the packaging design for bagged wines in boxes is also strictly registered. Now, the wine merchants remove the year marks on the packaging to reduce printing costs.

Astra Pouch packaging Dave Moynihan is the executive director of the former Constellation Group. As early as a few years ago, he expected the North American wine market to be relatively mature and could promote bagged wines. To this end, he founded AstraPouch North America to promote wine bags.

Astra Foil Bag is a combination of two layers of recyclable plastic designed with a one-way tap to isolate oxygen. The standard 1.5-liter bag is 7 feet wide, 10 feet high and 2 feet wide at the bottom. This bag can quickly shrink and eliminate extra oxygen. This package can be displayed like a French fries, especially suitable for display sales at the checkout counter. Moynihan is also planning to launch another 3 litre "party packaging."

Most Astra foil bags on the market today are printed with colorful patterns for product promotion. The color pattern surface is covered with a plastic protective film.

In addition, Moynihan is now also launching a 1.5-3 liter customizable “blank pack” for small wineries. The packaging does not have any text or graphics. After the winery has ordered the packaging, it can print its own logo. However, such instant printed logos are prone to wear and are not as good as those printed in advance.