What's your approach to labelling wine bottles?

[Jimwix]

Interested to hear the different thoughts and approaches people have to wine labelling…

[oldbloke]

I don't give mine to anybody, and so I really don't care how it looks.
Consequently, I don't bother trying to remove the existing labels (they come off by themselves the 6th time through the dishwasher)
And as I store bottles on their sides in a rack, the obvious way to ID them quickly is a neck collar - it hangs down so you can read it without moving the bottles at all.
They're easily and quickly made by cutting a sheet of A4 into 12 rectangles, then doing 4 cuts that cross at one end to make somewhere for the bottle neck to push through.
Folding a corner over shows you quickly and simply where the first cut goes, then folding along that cut shows where the other 3 go.
Scribble with a sharpie, done.

If I wanted to get fancy I'd print them instead of using the sharpie, but that's it.
In fact my writing's so bad these days I think I'll start doing that. Not hard to set up the template in Word.

[Jimwix]

I like that idea. I had thought about luggage tags, with string - but that idea is even simpler and as you say makes printing simple too.

[DeadFall]

I just use the shrink wrap cork covers and make a note of which colour is for each wine.

[goodolpete]

I adapted this site's beer labels to make my wine labels:
http://www.beerlabelizer.com/

Eg

[GAZ9053]

I use avery labels and print them out, kit name, style,bottled,ABV with my brewery picture

[Jimwix]

Cheers Pete, what sort of printer, paper and glue do you use.?

Gaz, they they come off easily too?

[goodolpete]

Ordinary (cheapest) Tesco printer paper on a Canon MG4150 printer using kids glue bottle.

[GAZ9053]

Yes with a bit of a soak.

[Brewhunter]

I shrink cap them then write on the side with a permanent marker so you can easily see them in the wine rack.

[Francois]

If I can be bothered/if they're for someone else; little spell on PhotoShop, stick on with pritt stik.

More often though, basic white sticky labels with a single letter/word/acronym on them (keep all the abv/other info in a little book anyway)

Last year I made so much wine though I couldn't even be bothered with that, so just packed them into milk crates and boxes and just labelled those

[JamesF]

Easiest approach is just to drink the stuff faster

We use thin wallpaper paste to stick labels on. Means they come off nice and easy later on.

James

[Geezah]

What is this label buissiness?

I just play wine roulette!

[Capped]

Easiest approach is just to drink the stuff faster

Labelling? I don't even bother to sterilise them - the missus necks a demijohn's worth in a few days, much less than it'd take for any infection to manifest itself. I do however make at least a couple of gallons of elderberry every year and they do get sterilised and labelled with a bit of masking tape bearing the year. Posh huh? I know that it's all elderberry cos' it's the only red I make and it ends up in the dark recesses of underneath the stairs. Just started on 2011's vintage and a cracking drop it is too.

[nursebetty]

I tend to add labels and shrink wraps makes it look professional