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Labels take bottles from the wine cellar to the trophy case

The annual Tag and Label Manufacturing Institute competition in October celebrated excellence in tag and p-s label design, as well as innovation in converting.

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The labels that decorate the bottles shown here exhibit a uniqueness as intriguing as the wines themselves. It’s no wonder the Tag and Label Manufacturing Institute (Naperville, IL) honored so many wine labels among its 34 North American winners in this year’s competition.

Seven wine labels were honored with First Place awards in the North American division. To compete, entrants must be converters and members of the TLMI organization. Labels, tags, cartons, and flexible packaging are judged based on technical excellence, overall printing quality, production (converting complexity), and function.

This year’s entries ranged from front and back labels for household cleaning fluids to cartons for personal care products. The winning wine labels employ creative decorative techniques and subtle graphics. Steve Lee, awards chairperson at TLMI, says that he expects wine and spirits labels to continue to excel at the TLMI awards.

“The wineries demand a higher-end label,” Lee says. “Some of the labels are absolutely beautiful. Some of them are reproductions of paintings.”

Lee says that next year, contest organizers plan on adding a special wine and spirits division to the TLMI awards. Because of the high-quality demands that the wineries have, their labels are almost unfair competition against day-to-day labels judged in other categories, he adds.

Symmetrical label

In keeping with its shapely moniker, Symmetry, the Alexander Valley red table wine from Rodney Strong Vineyards (1), is decorated with a triangle-shaped label that embodies aspects of both the name and the richness of the wine itself. The deep brown and black pressure-sensitive paper label is trimmed with a delicate dotted line that accentuates its angular shape.

“The look reflects exactly what the wine itself tastes like,” says a representative at Healdsburg, CA-based Rodney Strong Vineyards. “The deep, rich flavor is captured in the label.”

Designed in conjunction with Powers Creative (Windsor, CA), the front label is half black, half brown. A yin-yang-shaped symbol is poised in the top-center portion of the label. It’s embossed in gold with half of its interior colored brown, the other black. The brand name is also embossed in gold, while the remaining text is bronze.

The subtle coloring and foil stamping were executed by converter Tapp Technologies Inc. (Langley, British Columbia, Canada). Tapp earned four awards in all at this year’s competition, winning First Place for the Symmetry label.

Tapp offset-prints the label in three colors plus a waterless UV varnish. The label is also foil-stamped and embossed.

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