I wrote a piece about generic foil capsules on my blog, stating that if you aren’t going to use capsules that identify your wine then why bother with them at all.
I’m curious what the cost of generic vs personalised foil capsules really is. I haven’t been able to find any figures on the interwebs. Would any of you care to enlighten me?
I agree with everything you say in your blog post, Dave. However, one caveat: some “generic” foils come in “not generic” colors, and I do find the use of a “non-generic” color to be helpful in identifying said wine (i.e.: Seghesio’s use of different colors for some of its wines; Lascombes’ recent use of purple foils; etc…)
I have to disagree but with conditions. Our foils are generic becuase of two things.
1- Our production runs are single barrel single vineyard releases and you usually have to place an order for over 30 to 50K labels to have them imprinted. PROBLEM… Its not that they are any more expesive really but it’s the size of the order. You can order 1 generic but you have to order a minimum of 30K imprinted.
2- Our label and bottle design works better with the look of a general capsule. We tryed imprinting as our website pics will show but we felt it looked better on the shelf without it.
So in some cases you are right and some cases there might be reasons why generic might fit a winery better for looks and cost as well.
check out the site and see what I mean
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The black label, capsule and bottle looks very stylish, and a black bottle would be easy to spot in most cellars. (Though I think the dragonfly emblem on the end cap would enhance the look.)
At 100 cases to a lot a batch of 30K foils would last you 25 lots, so I can see why that would be an issue.
However I’m sure we could all name plenty of wineries producing thousands of cases annually who use generic foils. One of the wines in my picture was a ~$40 Cabernet Franc from a winery who produces over 1,000 cases annually. Another was a Zinfandel from a winery who also produces Cabernets - they use custom foils on their cabs but generics on their Zins.
Thanks, I agree. Anyone not using them on large batches is not very good at attention to detail with respect to their brand. I agree.
The dragonfly logo is on the cork ends and adds to the bottle opening experience!!!
We float between no foil (rose) to generic foils and buttering the top with wax.
We also have such small runs that we cannot justify anything but generic at this time.
Dave, We are in the same boat.
I ditched foils entirely starting with the '05 vintage. They just came to seem like waste, and they tended to hang up the bottling line. I prefer to put the money saved into longer and better grade corks. I was prepared for some resistance, but I’ve only had one retailer balk at the lack of a foil. I see more unfoiled bottles on the shelves each year, so I’m hopeful that the likelihood of this look striking people as odd is diminishing.
We use logo imprinted foils and Lafitte produces them. You have to order 10,000 but they stock them for you as you need them. I love the way it looks laying in the cellar with our logo lined up in rows. People have different reasons for using the products they use but it seemed awkward to me not making the packaging as important as the product. That outlook may change in the future as I get excited about every little thing in the industry still.
Dave, if you need cost numbers I’d be glad to PM them to you.
It’s been done, so I hear. 
We order the minimum order size of the black with red dragonfly embossed foil and then that order lasts us a couple of years using the same size for our 750s and mags. We use a plain foil for the 375s. I don’t recall the exact quote but the price between that size embossed order and plain is not so different that it should affect the decision on how your package looks.
Last order in 2007 cost about $3100 for about 26k foils. Of course there is some wastage, but ~4 cents a bottle isn’t too bad for embossed.
We recently swiched from stock foils to custom foils. Price is the same, but had to order 30k in order to get that pricing. Which is about 2500 cases and that is roughly the amount we produce each year, so it worked out nicely.
I like being the star of your blogs Dave.
Wells Guthrie and Brian Loring were inspirations for me as well. I figured if they didn’t need foils, neither did I. Maybe it will catch on.