Wine bottle engraving service for personalised gifts or bulk orders for your business
In this customer case study, we explore wine bottle engraving. This is the perfect example for cost effective laser engraving for a local wine maker. Contact Self-Inking Stamps Ltd to find out whether rotary laser engraving for your wine bottles will be suitable for your business.
Our client runs a vineyard. This vineyard produces a select wine each year for an exclusive market. The select wine is then bottled into magnum size bottles.
Each year there is a low volume for this wine for this high value product. Part of the value is the exclusivity of these wine bottles. To emphasize the exclusivity there must be some way to personalise these wine bottles. So potential customers interested in purchasing can easily detect the rarity. The personalisation must be well affixed to the bottle to ensure authenticity. Most of the time a label is affixed to the bottle. However, most labels are mass run and are all the same. There is no differentiation. To produce consistent labels in 10 or 50 groups is difficult and expensive.
Self-Inking Stamps was asked if it was possible to engrave each magnum wine bottle for each batch.
There is a batch for the year, the varietal mix, and the number of the bottle in that batch total like bottle X of eight etc. Our customer asked if this was possible for us to provide. The answer was yes we can definitely provide this for their wine bottle engraving. That perfect predicament is exactly when laser engraving is the perfect tool for providing the solution to this problem.
To laser engrave wine bottles, each bottle one at a time is placed into the rotary device within the laser engraving machine. And is slowly rotated and the laser machine engraves the surface of the glass as it works. A bit like an inkjet printer, but instead of firing ink it fires a focused laser beam at the surface of the wine bottle glass. The laser engraving machine used by the Self-Inking Stamps Ltd. team is large enough to hold a magnum wine bottle ideal for glass engraving.
As the wine bottles are individually processed, this is the perfect opportunity to label (laser engrave) for their individual batch and individual number within that batch. The wine bottle engraving to the surface of the wine bottle is permanent. It will never come off. It is etched into the surface of the wine bottle. Unlike a wine bottle label which could be soaked or scraped off the wine bottle engraving will remain forever on the wine bottle. And it prevents any fraudulent practices about authenticity.
Note: Glass is a natural product. Natural products have variation. Variation between every bottle in the glass mixture and the shape of the bottle and the size of the bottle. They are not exact. Then within every bottle is variation from one part to another. When laser engraving glass the laser beam causes micro fracturing to the surface which produces the mark on the glass.
This variation can mean the engraving will be different across the engraved area and when viewed from different angles may not look present or as well marked until viewed from a different angle. That variation may be within a letter. Laser engraving and sandblasting are two techniques for this sort of work and there are differences to the appearance.
What is required to perform this work?
To laser engrave wine bottles there are some specific items required to calculate a production cost and then to perform the actual work.
These things are:
- Length of the wine bottle to engrave.
- Diameter of the bottle where the engraving is to be done.
- A photo of the bottle is helpful to ensure the bottle shape, or any curves will be possible to engrave that spot.
- The height and width of the engraving.
- Whether the engraving is on one side, two sides or a continuous wrap.
With that information a quote can be estimated and provided to see if that fits the budget.
For custom wine bottle engraving it is good to have spare wine bottles and do a test. To check the engraving qualities of the glass and to ensure a good clear and readable mark is possible on that glass mix. From that point after our quote is accepted, we will require more information.
This includes the artwork required for the label from your marketing department or graphic designer. This would preferably be in a vector image format. This can then be checked to ensure everything can be engraved with minimum font sizes and line thickness. After a test bottle is produced and the marking is acceptable then the engraving can begin.
For this vineyard customer there was a specific set of parameters for us to provide wine bottle engraving.
On one side of the wine bottle we provided wine bottle engraving was:
- The vineyard logo
- The year of production
- The wine types
On the other side of the wine bottle we provided wine bottle engraving was:
- The details of the mix of varieties
- Alcohol content
- The total in the batch
- The bottle number within that batch.
To do this sort of work it can be nerve wracking. Accuracy is paramount. You must slow down and carefully concentrate on each wine bottle, which one of the groups is it, which batch is it, which type and what year all must be checked. Once the laser machine starts there is no turning back. These bottles were full and could not be changed.
While laser engraving bottles produces an effect that is fantastic all on its own other effects can be added. For these wine bottles, a gold fill is being applied to the engraving area to highlight the bottle marking even further. The business owner will be performing that task. Something to sit and polish into the surface for all your hard work and a great result.
Contact our team when you are looking for individual wine bottle engraving to make you proud of the all the hard work you have done in your vineyard. To ensure your clients have no doubt about what is in your bottles with custom wine bottle engraving is an option to consider. In this case the wine bottles were engraved after filling and had been in storage for years. However, wine bottle engraving can also be done on empty bottles planned for the coming wine season.
Contact Self-Inking Stamps Ltd to find out whether rotary laser engraving for your wine bottles will be suitable for your business.
