What often starts out as a simple question, asking for an equally simple answer, turns out to be complicated. Here’s the simple question: How much does a bottle of wine packaging cost? For the sake of this discussion, packaging is defined as the wine bottle, cork, capsule / foil, labels (front and back), and full bottle. As in most manufacturing processes, costs are directly related to volume; the more you produce at one time, the cheaper the final cost. But, what follows is, “the devil is in the details”, the answer to a simple question.

Having spent many years in marketing, I realize the intrinsic value of exceptional packaging. It would be foolish to ignore the powerful attraction that good packaging has in the final purchase decision. Even the design of a “good wine package” has a set of ground rules that are governed by prices and industry standards. The point I want to make is that a good wine label design would not perform well compared to, for example, an Auto Zone product packaging design.

In general, this review of the wine packaging cost makes the following assumptions: a boutique winery with a circulation of 500 cases and that does not have the bottling equipment. The size of the bottle is 750 ml. It is also assumed that the objective of the wine brand is to fully position itself in the high-end market.

The next time you shop for wine, take a look at all the shapes, colors, sizes, lengths, patterns on the glass and bottles with differently shaped bottoms. There are over 50 wine bottle options available to a winemaker (based on our guess parameters). In the full range of available wine types and pack sizes, the total is over 100 size-related options.

Historically, shapes define a white wine and a red wine and a bottle of desert wine. Within these categories, shapes receive more consideration in height and diameter (the bottle and the inside diameter of the neck). The shapes also affect the bottling process when the labels are applied. In addition, the selection of the bottle influences the design of the label, where the shape of the bottle dictates the dimensions of the design. Most 750 ml bottles are between 11 and 12 inches tall; diameters are generally about 3 to 3.5 inches, so size does matter.

Wine bottle colors fall into 4 general categories: Antique, Champagne Green, Flint (Transparent), and Dead Leaf Green. Of course, each fabrication has its own colors, but these four generally appear to be basic breakdowns. The whites are packaged mainly in a flint color.

High-quality wine bottles mainly come from France and Italy. It is in Europe where the heaviest bottles with thicker walls are found. A case of these bottles weighs approximately 22 pounds. The cost per bottle for a premium 750ml bottle from Italy can be over $ 3.50 per bottle. The price of the bottle assumes a bottle with a pan, although there are options in addition to the bottom of the pan that include, flat and mini pan.

There are other options in case $ 3.50 per bottle (or even more) is too expensive. A domestic glass wine bottle producer will sell a case of bottles for $ 8-11 per case or if it goes to China, a case of bottles could cost $ 6 if purchased in sufficient quantity. Most bottle companies in the US selling cheap bottles made in China ($ 0.60 each) have their own quality assurance staff at the plants to oversee everything from the raw materials used in the glass to manufacture.

Simply put, a high-quality 750ml heavyweight bottle of wine with a full pan will cost between $ 3.50- $ 4.00 and comes from Italy.

Outside of the creative aspects of winemaking, the next effort in packaging is designing a label for a specific bottle. Herein lies the most difficult packaging decision. Do you judge quality based on past performance, training, and experience of a wine label designer, or do you buy design services based on price? Of course, there are intermediate points between these extremes. In any case, you will need a good designer.

Some commercial label design firms will do a label design for $ 5,000. A few years ago it was not uncommon to see a very high-end label design where the winery paid $ 40,000 or more. Like bottles, there are countless options for quality design. More on that later. But like most things in life, a person can minimize costs and inconvenience if good planning precedes the actual start of a design project. Good planning is defined as committing on paper the objectives of the wine brand, the competition, the image that a winemaker wants to project and providing the results of the research.

Some of the issues a designer will face include but are not limited to: font, colors, label shape (the bottle will dictate some of the shape issues), metallic ink / foil, variety of the wine itself, labels competitiveness, paper color and texture, ink types, UV coating, and label durability requirements. What most people don’t think of is that a white wine is subjected to water and ice in a bucket. Therefore, a good design must take into account the auxiliary question of water.

Once the design is finished and the label is approved by the Bureau of Taxation and Commerce, it is ready for the printers. Here again, country experience. A good printer will ensure that the label and adhesive complement the design when applied to the bottle. The experiences with foils, inks, embossing and applying labels are very important topics for a winery. Printing two very high quality labels per bottle can cost $ 7.00 to $ 15.00 per bottle (in our assumed quantities), which includes special cutting tools.

The finest hand-selected cork, with a logo printed on the top and around the side, will cost $ 1.50 per cork. Of course, you can buy corks for as little as $ 0.25, but that’s not the quality we propose for this proposed high-end wine brand. The tin foil / capsule with the embossed and printed logo will cost $ 0.70 each. Again, you, as a winemaker, could save some money and go for a printed polylaminate capsule that would cost around $ 0.22 each. With the cork and tin capsules, one must assume $ 2.10 for both products. Now the bottle needs to be filled, corked, labeled and packaged.

This proposed high-end boutique winery is about to call the mobile packing / filling provider. But, before they can give you a price, you need to supply the following bits of information to get a price.

• How many gallons will you bottle?
• What is the expected packing date?
• What is the variety and therefore how much filtering will be required?
• Are you using cork instead of screw cap?
• What is the specification of the label to be applied? (The printer will provide that information.)
• Are all supplies on hand and ready for the filling operation?
• Sanitized bottles?

With everything in place, a winemaker might be looking for a cost of about $ 1.67 per bottle to fill 500 cases of his fine wine.

So now are we ready to estimate the final, all-inclusive cost that doesn’t exceed the cost of packing the best boutique wine in Napa? The cost could be $ 15 to $ 20 per bottle for packaging. Add one-time design services from $ 5,000 to $ 40,000.

Remember, the packaging actually sells the first bottle, and then the quality of the product must support the image that the winemaker created with their packaging. People appreciate quality.