Wax manufacturer recommends.

[Adam Frisch]

So, I've been striking out pretty badly with one of the biggest bottle wax producers in America. They've now done 3 samples trying to match a design for a Pantone color and been so far off the mark every time, I've now completely lost faith in them. I understand that it has to be done manually and by eye, but it seems that their blending lab is quite literally employing color blind people..

Are there any producers that use wax tops here and can give me a recommendation for a good wax supplier that can do custom colors?

[Michael Martin]

I don't have a wax supplier for you, but I can tell you that color matching does not have to be done by eye. There are easy ways to do it, they probably just don't have the equipment. These guys are the king of color management.
https://www.xrite.com/

[Scott G r u n e r]

I think foil is the way to go. Just one consumers vote.

[Don Brazelton]

No wax please. Just put a cork in as several producers I buy.

[Mark Y]

No wax please. Just put a cork in as several producers I buy.

Agree..dear god.. lose the wax. it's not cool, it's not pretty.. it's just a royal pain in ass for the customer.

[Michael Martin]

No wax please. Just put a cork in as several producers I buy.

Agree..dear god.. lose the wax. it's not cool, it's not pretty.. it's just a royal pain in ass for the customer.

Insert cork screw in center of wax and pull. If you do anymore, you are doing too much.

[Mark Y]

No wax please. Just put a cork in as several producers I buy.

Agree..dear god.. lose the wax. it's not cool, it's not pretty.. it's just a royal pain in ass for the customer.

Insert cork screw in center of wax and pull. If you do anymore, you are doing too much.

1. What about blind tasting?
2. I tried that and Half of the time it doesn’t work.
3. It’s bottom line - still unnecessary. Wax has 0 functionality.

[Wes Barton]

No wax please. Just put a cork in as several producers I buy.

Agree..dear god.. lose the wax. it's not cool, it's not pretty.. it's just a royal pain in ass for the customer.

Wax is lame and useless. There's quite a range, so some is a pain for consumers and some isn't bad. Capsules are lame, too. If you want to walk the walk on the green and natural side of things, just go bare. Quite a few respected wineries do.

[Merrill Lindquist]

I use Etched Images in Napa for my magnums. I have been very happy with them.

[Michael Martin]

I use Etched Images in Napa for my magnums. I have been very happy with them.

You have some of the nicest bottles too Merrill.

[Merrill Lindquist]

I use Etched Images in Napa for my magnums. I have been very happy with them.

You have some of the nicest bottles too Merrill.

Thank you! I work hard at it...my favorite that does not have a waxed cap - just comes in 750ml - is the 2015 Lady Sapphire. I am talking bottle design. I tried a bottle recently and we all agreed it was not ready for consumption. This was the single barrel wine I made.

[Michael Martin]

I use Etched Images in Napa for my magnums. I have been very happy with them.

You have some of the nicest bottles too Merrill.

Thank you! I work hard at it...my favorite that does not have a waxed cap - just comes in 750ml - is the 2015 Lady Sapphire. I am talking bottle design. I tried a bottle recently and we all agreed it was not ready for consumption. This was the single barrel wine I made.

Thread drift....Merrill I have a magnum of the ‘13 SS with a family reunion coming up this Fall. Drink or hold?

[Merrill Lindquist]

You have some of the nicest bottles too Merrill.

Thank you! I work hard at it...my favorite that does not have a waxed cap - just comes in 750ml - is the 2015 Lady Sapphire. I am talking bottle design. I tried a bottle recently and we all agreed it was not ready for consumption. This was the single barrel wine I made.

Thread drift....Merrill I have a magnum of the ‘13 SS with a family reunion coming up this Fall. Drink or hold?

I have not tried it for quite awhile. I'll pull one and let you know.

[Adam Frisch]

Such resistance to wax. Never had much problem with them myself.

[Michael Martin]

Such resistance to wax. Never had much problem with them myself.

Me neither.

[Gary Schulte]

Adam - Who have you tried? Surprisingly, there are not many wax producers worldwide but there are lots of resellers. I ordered waxes from CalWax & Blended Waxes for comparison on dipping and ease of pulling the cork. Both of them will do custom work. Not knowing how colors are made for waxes I could imagine that hitting on a pantone color might be difficult. We originally thought of matching label color to wax color but have simplified it to a few colors for the wines we make. I think the third wax maker in North America is Kings Wax in Canada. Funny thing is that when I started looking at waxes I came across so many sites with "Brazilian Waxing".......didn't take me long to figure out that was not bottle appropriate.

[Adam Frisch]

Hi Gary.

BW is the one that has not been able to match the color at all after 3 months of back and forth. Now I'm talking to Kings Wax in Vancouver and he got the color right on his first try, judging from photos. But as he's in Canada, I initially asked here in case there was some US supplier I had missed. He's now sending me some samples and I'll take it from there and see how it behaves on the bottle.

Part of me doesn't want the insane hassle of dipping thousands of bottles, but I can't help but think it elevates the product. The way Claus Preisinger does it on his bottles is really tasteful - a short dip. Hard to get that vibe with foil.

[Gary Schulte]

Adam - Just to complete the trials and pricing I would contact CalWax as they are close to you in La Mirada. They do custom work as well. The Blended Waxes folks have more "pre-made" colors than the others but it sounds like custom color matching is not their strength.

[Wes Barton]

Such resistance to wax. Never had much problem with them myself.

Search around on the forum. There is a lot of serious dislike. While I'm sure you'd choose a wax that's not a PIA for customers, a lot of us have had to deal with really difficult wax. Enough that's it's a strong negative in making a buying decision. For novices who haven't dealt with wax, it's intimidating. That's a couple segments of potential customers you'd be deterring sales with. After that, comes the opening decision. I see this all the time, when there are multiple bottles to choose from, waxed bottles don't get opened, unless it's a really compelling producer. (And, again, some of them use awful wax, which just reinforces negative sentiments.)

A couple wineries I work with use wax on magnums, but that's like up to 24 bottles. I don't know any winemakers who like the idea of dealing with wax beyond that. Some of them have done it, then abandoned the practice.

Again, don't think of capsules as the alternative. As someone who has bottled for dozens (50?) of labels, they are a constant problem. They are so delicate. Despite the massive amount of packaging to protect them, a warehouse worker can toss a box around fairly normally, compacting them together very slightly, which is enough that they stick together just enough that they won't work in a dispenser and have to be put on manually. A slight change, with the same specs, for the capsules or bottles, can mean they don't go on well or at all. Imagine having to watch for and pull a certain percent from the line, cut off the capsule and put those back on the line. Oh, that safe amount of extra you felt safe with is gone, and you have several cases with no capsules, despite all those you let through with a somewhat acceptable level of creasing. The mobile line I worked with most recently (and a few times before) didn't even bother getting a dispenser. That meant Lucy and Ethel spent 8 hours maxed out on a fast line manually putting on capsules.

My recommendation is a nicely branded cork as part of the packaging design. It can look very clean, elegant, natural. Check producers like Halcon, Big Basin, Ghostwriter, Harrington, Broc, Edmunds St. John, Wind Gap, Cellars 33 and many more. (Some may choose to capsule a higher tier of wines.)

[Adam Frisch]

Will see what happens. My label designer has been begging me not to do wax as well, so maybe I'll just do it for the limited edition releases and the magnums. I'm still up in the air about it, but have asked Lafitte for a quote on the plastic foils now...

[Gary Schulte]

Adam - As you know there are some waxes that make it easier to cleanly pull out the cork in one go.. I've had real good luck and relatively easy pull out of Liquid Farm's wax seals(CalWax). I think there is a little technique needed to set that up. If I remember right you have the cork inserted slightly below the bottle rim. That gives a small plug of wax directly over the cork. For some reason, if I recall correctly, that makes for a clean pull. With all wax bottles I usually pull part way and wipe around rim and then pull the cork out. One thing I like about this is that you don't fuss with taking off the foil capsule. At the other end of the spectrum are my Dunn Howell Mtn cabs that are 10-20 years old. Those seem to be a bakelite type of wax. Most royal pain in in the ass to pull out cleanly with lots of counter cleanup to get the wax shards.

[Michael Martin]

A lot of the folks who don’t like wax think you have to chip it off. The reality is just insert a corkscrew in the center, pull up and the wax will break near the cork seam allowing you to lift the cork out.
Saxum, Nicora, Jaffurs Upslope, Bedrock magnums to name a few all use wax. I have never passed on a bottle because of a wax top, in fact I think they convey an image of quality.

[Al Osterheld]

I find it depends on the wax. With a pliable wax and young corks, just ignore it. Over time, some wax gets less pliable and the corks less sturdy so you can end up with corks breaking especially if the wax is thicker.

And then there is the lovely shellac type wax on Puffeney and Raveneau.

-Al

[Mark Y]

A lot of the folks who don’t like wax think you have to chip it off. The reality is just insert a corkscrew in the center, pull up and the wax will break near the cork seam allowing you to lift the cork.

Would like to know how this works when you need a Durand to pull a 35 yr old bdx cork?

[Lee Ibarra]

Adam have you tried Reed Wax? Great quality and they are pretty good with custom colors.. Also in the US

[Adam Frisch]

Thanks for info guys. Samples have been sent from King's Wax in Vancouver, so will see how they play out. He uses a higher temp wax, so not sure how that behaves when dried.

[Michael Martin]

A lot of the folks who don’t like wax think you have to chip it off. The reality is just insert a corkscrew in the center, pull up and the wax will break near the cork seam allowing you to lift the cork.

Would like to know how this works when you need a Durand to pull a 35 yr old bdx cork?

I insert the cork screw. Pull it up just enough to crack a reasonably round piece of wax off to expose the cork and then continue with a Durand or an Ah-So.

[Michael Martin]

A lot of the folks who don’t like wax think you have to chip it off. The reality is just insert a corkscrew in the center, pull up and the wax will break near the cork seam allowing you to lift the cork.

Would like to know how this works when you need a Durand to pull a 35 yr old bdx cork?

Decided to pop a waxed bottle tonight in honor of this thread. Even used an Ah-so.

[Mark Y]

A lot of the folks who don’t like wax think you have to chip it off. The reality is just insert a corkscrew in the center, pull up and the wax will break near the cork seam allowing you to lift the cork.

Would like to know how this works when you need a Durand to pull a 35 yr old bdx cork?

Decided to pop a waxed bottle tonight in honor of this thread. Even used an Ah-so.

Lol. Nice!!

That cork is in amazing shape too!
Normally I find them weak/half soiled. Not sure they can break the wax. But yah. I find wax in general to be useless and I drink what’s in the bottle, not admire what’s covering it . I can see commercial appeal tho to the masses.

[Randy Bowman]

Contact Booker Winery for usable wax. Booker 2016 My Favorite Neighbor Red Wine. Centered the cork screw and pulled the wax clean.

[Victor Hong]

If brown is an OK color, my ears might help. But that, too, can be a pain to remove.

[Adam Frisch]

If brown is an OK color, my ears might help. But that, too, can be a pain to remove.

[Adam Frisch]

Back to wax. Supplier can't provide the foil in the dimensions I want. Also has a minimum of 2500 pieces per bottle size, so that adds up quick. Plastic caps not an option for these bottle sizes, plus it's a 50000 minimum order.

Looks like I'll be developing scoliosis and a "Jai-Alai" arm waxing...

[Gary Schulte]

Based on this discussion the other night I opened a terrific 2015 Liquid Farm La Hermana chardonnay that had a wax cap. No tricks just put corkscrew in pull part way to pop the wax disc. Paper towel to wipe around cork and pull rest of the way out. I know they use CalWax on their bottles. No hassle as the LF wax caps are always easy pulls.

[Michael Martin]

Back to wax. Supplier can't provide the foil in the dimensions I want. Also has a minimum of 2500 pieces per bottle size, so that adds up quick. Plastic caps not an option for these bottle sizes, plus it's a 50000 minimum order.

Looks like I'll be developing scoliosis and a "Jai-Alai" arm waxing...

This thread has made me really curious about your wines. Any thought of a Berserker Day offering?

[Adam Frisch]

This thread has made me really curious about your wines. Any thought of a Berserker Day offering?

Thank you Martin. I'm actually considering bottling early and offering my first ever releases on BD, now that I've read up on it and got my footings here a little bit better. I was going to bottle in the new year and start selling in spring, but I think BD might be a perfect opportunity to get some interested people trying it. Should be 5 wines and a cracking deal.

[Mark Y]

This thread has made me really curious about your wines. Any thought of a Berserker Day offering?

Thank you Martin. I'm actually considering bottling early and offering my first ever releases on BD, bow that I've read up on it and got my footings here a little bit better! I was going to bottle in the new year and start selling in spring, but I think BD might be a perfect opportunity to get some interested people trying it. Should be 5 wines and a cracking deal.

Will any of the 5 wines not have wax on it to ruin it?

kidding! good luck on the relese!