Wine label

[fourcorners]

Hi all,
My business partner received a wedding invitation this week. The wedding is at a winery in Napa and the invitation was actually printed on the label on a bottle of wine! Came to the house in a small wine crate. Too bad these people are such cheapskates, huh? I'm trying to convince her to take ME to the wedding instead of her husband...
ANYHOW, we usually frame the invitation as a gift for all the weddings we go to. The label is majorly glued on to the bottle. Any suggestions as to how she may remove it for framing? No interest in framing the whole bottle in a shadow box. I've got a couple of ideas but knew y'all would have something to say...

 

[Framing Goddess]

I would contact the bride and ask if she has any spares for framing. I'll bet she does.

edie the itcouldnthurttoask goddess

 

[Jerry Ervin]

There is a product available at wine stores called "label savers" It is a peel and stick somewhat like Print Guard. The labels peel off much easier. I find they work above 9 out of 10 times.

I collect labels and corks of my favorite vintners.

 

[Paul N]

I have had good success with filling the wine bottle with hot water a couple of times.

 

[Jim Miller]

Originally posted by fourcorners:
...No interest in framing the whole bottle in a shadow box...

That's too bad. It would have made a stunning presentation and a conversation piece for decades.

 

[fourcorners]

I just talked to my partner and she said that the reason she doesn't want to do a shadowbox is that both labels (front and back) make up the invitation and she wants to show them both.

 

[Matoaka]

You might contact the winery. I worked for Mondavi way-back-when and we mailed out labels for free.

 

[Baer Charlton]

It would be great if the winery could send you out another bottle, then you could do both in the crates with a nice little frame tieing them together... kind of like a marriage.

What a cool invitation.

Or if you do get extra labels, you could slice the bottle in half and frame the two halfs with the two lables.

 

[Skippy the Bush Kangaroo]

Cut the bottle in half. If you want to give this a try. Use a glass cutter and score around the bottle from top to bottom and then back to top. use a small paint brush and paint the scored line with metholated Sprits. Light the metho and let it burn, tap all round the scored line and then let it crack, while it is still hot. After that one or two sharp taps should give you a relatively clean break.

 

[TheDoctah]

As an erstwhile wine geek, I say, listen to the framinggoddess! Absolutely the best opportunity for flat framing is to get one of the spares from the bride to be. It will be pristine, unlike any label you can peel off, regardless of method employed. (Not bad suggestions so far on that score; but modern labels and adhesives are becoming less and less removal-friendly, what with the shiny coating on the labels and the heat activated adhesives.) As this is a wedding invitation it may not have the shiny coating that so many of the modern colorful (especially domestic) labels seem to have, in which case it may be possible to remove by soaking, but that will still be a distant second in quality from a pristine label. Talk to the bride and tell her what you plan on doing; she'll almost certainly have extras.

 

[Paul N]

Originally posted by Jim Miller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by fourcorners:
...No interest in framing the whole bottle in a shadow box...

That's too bad. It would have made a stunning presentation and a conversation piece for decades. </font>[/QUOTE]Couldn't agree more! I wanted to do this with one of my favorite wines, but time is a moving target.

I bet if I did that, the wine store across the street would want couple wine shadowboxes done too!

 

[Rogatory]

I've had real good luck with IWA inc.

 

[Rick Granick]

These are some great suggestions, but wouldn't most of them require you to actually drink the wine first?

On a related (opposite?) subject, I enjoy designing wine labels for applying to gift bottles of wine for birthday presents or take-along gifts to dinner party hosts. I print them on my Epson, usually on glossy photo paper, sometimes matte. Then I seal them with Crystal Clear Krylon. To apply them to the bottle I usually use 3M 77 spray adhesive. It seems to do a good job, but I'm wondering about the longterm stability of the mount, not to mention the fumes.
Does anyone have any suggestions for an alternative to the 77? Most of these labels are about 3x5 to 4x6 inches.

Thanks.
Rick

P.S.: As to removing the real labels, I usually just soak and/or scrape them off, but it's of no concern when one doesn't intend to catalog or frame them.