The cost of high-end wine packaging

What often starts out as a simple question, asking for an equally simple answer, becomes complicated. Here is the simple question: How much does the packaging of a bottle of wine cost? For the sake of this discussion, packaging is defined as the wine bottle, cork, capsule/foil, labels (front and back), and filled bottle. As in most manufacturing processes, costs are directly related to volume; the more you produce in a single run, the cheaper the final cost. But, what follows is, “the devil is in the details” answers a simple question.

Having spent many years in marketing, I realize the intrinsic value of outstanding packaging. It would be foolish to ignore the powerful appeal that good packaging has on the final purchase decision. Even “good wine packaging” design has a set of ground rules that are governed by price points and industry norms. The point I want to make is that a good wine label design would not perform well compared to, say, an Auto Zone product packaging design.

In general, this packaging cost review for wine has the following assumptions: A boutique winery with a print run of 500 cases and does not own the bottling equipment. The size of the bottle is 750 ml. It is also assumed that the objective of the wine brand is to fully position itself in the high-end market.

The next time you buy wine, look at all the shapes, colors, sizes, lengths, designs on the glass, and bottles with different shaped bottoms. There are over 50 wine bottle options available to a winemaker (based on our assumed parameters). Across the range of wine types and pack sizes available the total is over 100 size options.

Historically, the shapes define a white wine and a red wine and a bottle of desert wine. Within these categories, shapes receive more consideration in height and diameter (the bottle and the inside diameter of the neck). The shapes also affect the bottling process when the labels are applied. In addition, the selection of the bottle influences the design of the label, where the shape of the bottle dictates the dimensions of the design. Most 750ml bottles are between 11 and 12 inches tall; diameters are usually about 3 to 3.5 inches, so size does matter.

Wine bottle colors fall into 4 general categories: antique, champagne green, flint (clear), and dead leaf green. Of course, each manufacturer has their own colors, but these four generally seem like basic breakdowns. Whites are primarily packaged in the color flint.

High-quality wine bottles come mainly from France and Italy. It is from Europe that the heaviest bottles with thicker walls are found. A case of these bottles weighs approximately 22 pounds. The cost per bottle of a premium 750ml bottle from Italy can be upwards of $3.50 per bottle. The bottle price assumes a pointed bottle, although there are options besides the bottom pan including, flat, and mini pan.

There are other options in case $3.50 a bottle (or even more) is too expensive. A domestic producer of glass wine bottles will sell a case of bottles at $8-11 per case or going to China, a case of bottles could cost $6 if purchased in sufficient quantity. Most of the bottle companies in the US that sell cheap bottles made in China ($0.60 each) have their own quality control staff in the plants to oversee everything from the raw materials used in the glass to manufacturing.

In a nutshell, a high-quality, heavyweight 750ml bottle of wine with a full pan will cost around $3.50 to $4.00 and comes from Italy.

Aside from the creative aspects of winemaking, the next endeavor in packaging is to design a label for a specific bottle. Herein lies the most difficult packaging decision. Do you judge quality based on a wine label designer’s past performance, education and experience, or do you buy design services based on price? Of course there are middle points between these extremes. In any case, you will need a good designer.

Some commercial label design firms will do a label design for $5,000. A few years ago, it was not uncommon to see a very high-end label design where the winery was paying $40,000 or more. Just like bottles, there are countless options for quality design. More on that topic later. But like most things in life, a person can minimize costs and hassles if good planning precedes the actual start of a design project. Good planning is defined as putting down on paper the objectives of the wine brand, the competition, the image that the winemaker wants to project and providing the results of the research.

Some of the issues a designer will deal with include but are not limited to: font, colors, label shape (the bottle will dictate some of the shape issues), ink/metallic foil, varietal of the wine itself, labels of the competition, paper color and texture, ink types, UV coating and label durability requirements. What most people don’t think of is that a white wine is subjected to water and ice in a bucket. Therefore, a good design must take into account the auxiliary theme of water.

Once the design is done and the label is approved by the Office of Tax and Trade, it is ready for printers. Here again, the experience of the country. A good printer will ensure that the label and sticker complement the design when applied to the bottle. Experiences with foils, inks, printing and label application are very important issues for a winery. Printing two very high quality labels per bottle can cost between $7.00 and $15.00 per bottle (in our assumed quantities), including special dies for cutting.

The best hand-picked cork, with a logo printed on the top and around the side, will cost $1.50 per cork. Of course, you can buy corks for as little as $0.25, but that’s not the quality we’re proposing for this proposed premium wine brand. The capsule/tin foil with printed and embossed logo will cost $0.70 each. Again, you as a winemaker could save some money and opt for a printed polyfoil capsule, which would cost you around $0.22 each. With cork and tin capsules, one must assume $2.10 for both products. Now the bottle needs to be filled, corked, labeled and packaged.

This proposed high-end boutique winery is almost ready to call the mobile bottling/filling vendor. But, before they can give you a price, you need to tell them the following information to get a price.

• How many gallons are you going to bottle?
• What is the expected date for packaging?
• What is the varietal and therefore how much filtering is going to be required?
• Are you using cork cap versus screw cap?
• What is the specification of the label to apply? (The printer will provide that information.)
• Are all supplies available and ready for the filling operation?
• Sanitized bottles?

With everything in place, a winemaker might be looking at a cost of about $1.67 per bottle to fill 500 cases of his fine wine.

So now we’re ready to estimate the final cost, all inclusive, not to exceed the cost of bottling Napa’s best boutique wine? The cost could be $15 to $20 per bottle for packaging. Add one-time design services from $5,000 up to $40,000.

Remember, the packaging really sells the first bottle, and then the quality of the product must support the image that the winemaker created with their packaging. People appreciate quality.