We have a customer that has visited our winery and wants several pallets of wine previously labeled for the US, to be privately labeled for his Christmas gifts. Any ideas on how to remove lots of labels? I know I am going to be peeling for a long time, but surely someone has a method they have used that works well.
Do you have your own bottling line? Would decanting and rebottling be an option? That seems like a lot of label peeling.
We do have our own bottling line, but we felt that it could compromise the wine quality in rebottling it. I thought the easiest would be soaking it for a day or two. Hot water for the volume we are doing would be prohibitive too.
I wish I had no experience in this, but unfortunately I do.
The quality of the label removal depends on the quality of your glue. Once you let “ice-bucket safe” glue stick for a day or two, it becomes difficult to make a nice clear presentation on the bottle (you get the ghosts and schmutz). Because the glue is designed to be water-safe.
Plain old water (warm, not hot for obvious wine quality reasons) does a decent job of loosening the paper depending on your stock. Then a little razor-blade action (we use ones that look like a facial razor that I believe are really made for painters to do corners) gets the label off clean. You’ll get good at that. If you have trouble with the initial label peeling, sometimes a little ammonia (Windex or something) in the water helps out.
With respect to the ghosts left of your old label (depending upon your glue) it just takes good old fashioned elbow grease and some sort of solvent like Goo-gone to really get them done 100%.
We had to peel and relabel about 120 cases this year due to a timing issue on the labeler. It took a crew of 3-4 guys about 3 days solid to get it done.
Too much hot water might hurt the wine also. ![[tease.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/c5b32b76bebaa359b0452ae247b61189ffe5fa7e.gif "tease"){kind=small}
What about acetone?
Only if you use nail polish to affix labels. 
Cool water should be sufficient to release the labels. Better yet, leave the original labels, and use the custom ones on the other side.
As Nate said, ammonia works fairly well for this. Never used acetone.
I’ll Start experimenting tomorrow.
Nola - how about making the new labels the same size/shape as the old lables, and then apply over the old?? I’ve seen this done in the past with wines that have made it to the Grocery Outlet - it was tough to tell unless you looked very closely. The job would still need to be done by hand, but I imagine that it would be less labor intensive.
We have a customer that has visited our winery and wants several pallets of wine previously labeled for the US, to be privately labeled for his Christmas gifts
Several pallets! How do I get on his Christmas list? ![[worship.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/9/99a8907a1d5b3c023582052741dc72dc9823c044.gif "worship"){kind=small}
Actually, make the new labels slightly larger, so that the centering does not have to be perfect. Oh yeah… if you did all of this and the guy backed out, would that constitute justifiable homicide…?
I don’t suppose he’d be happy with a banner label above your normal label with something like “Bottled for the Private Cellar of John D Rockefeller” (or whatever). If not, hopefully you can charge him for the work.
-Al
+1 to this post, especially the bold
Nola,
Try using ambient temperature water and lots of citric acid. It seems to work well on today’s stronger glues. Let the bottles soak for at least 2 hours, even longer is more effective. The labels still might not fall right off the bottles, so use nylon scrub pads to get the last of the paper/glue off the bottles if necessary. Good luck.
Offer him options.
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Take as is and have him apply self-adhesive labels over existing label (saves you labor)
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Soak labels off and charge for labor / time / etc. (with this amount, fill a 1/4 ton picking bin with solution to exact height of label for soaking)
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Or sit at a table with a razor blade and enjoy your week amongst your 4 friends.
Since these are merely gifts, and not for resale, I would let him know that applying self adhesives over your existing label would be the smartest and easiest decision.
I removed labels for many years. Every label and glue combination is different. One advantage you have is that these are all the same. If you find something that works for one, it will work for all. Try water as warm as the wine can take with baking soda first. If that doesn’t work, try ammonia.
A compromise among several good suggestions above would be to get new labels that are bigger than the current ones, then use large clear tape to take off most of the old label. You can buy (quite cheaply) a 4-inch wide roll of clear tape. It works just this product, but much much less expensive.
You do have to rub the tape over the whole label to have it work correctly, but this is much faster than scraping. And it will cut the thickness that might show underneath the new label.
Too much, and the cork might pop.
So I have 2 test bottles soaking in the kitchen sink, one in a container with water, ammonia and some acetic acid the other with water and citric acid. I leave to go to the village to buy bread, and things to make a nice paella for lunch. I come back into the kitchen and my cleaning lady is standing there at the sink scrubbing the last of the 2nd label off. Had already dumped my test containers down the drain.
The paella was good though!
Will start over again in the morning.
Good reminder to buy ingredients in Chinatown for homemade cassoulet, in anticipation of cooler weather. Oddly enough, after a very cool, rainy summer, this autumn is remarkably dry and temperate, with Noo Yawk hovering in the upper-70F’s.