Beautiful wine labels: should Prime Cellars go paperless?
Within the wine labeling industry, screen printed labels or Applied Ceramic Labels (ACL) occupy only a small slice of the overall pie. Although paperless bottle labeling techniques have not yet been widely adopted in the US, many existing paper label designs are perfect for ACL printing. Prime Cellars is an example of a winery that screen-prints its Reserva wines, but uses paper labels for the rest. We have some ideas on why you should go paperless for all of your labels.
Prime Cellars’ 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon is labeled with paper, but has a great undocumented potential. The label uses a light gray paper with a broad stroke of black ink on the front. The word “PRIME” is visible in the middle of the black ink, and “Napa Valley” appears in red below. The fact that red is used sparingly gives the paper label a monochrome look, and the hard edges of the paper feel out of place in a bold design.
On the contrary, Prime Cellars chose to differentiate its 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve through the use of screen-printed labels, and the benefits are numerous. First, the color on the paperless label is much more striking. The ink touch on the front is now bright red in the screen-printed bottle. The extra color draws attention and intensifies the brand. Second, because the red design is printed directly onto the glass rather than the paper, the color appears to have been hand-painted onto the surface of the bottle, bringing a real sense of synergy to the package. Third, the screen-printed labels are baked into the surface of the glass, so the Prime Cellars brand literally becomes part of the bottle. While a paper label can easily be scratched, torn, or peeled, Prime’s screen-printed labels are as durable as the bottle itself. Finally, in this economy, it’s important to get your products noticed. Choosing the less common labeling technique can actually help capture consumer attention. On shelves littered with paper labels, the unique look of a paperless bottle is likely to help wines stand out from the crowd.