Sure, what’s inside the bottle may be the most important part of winemaking, but the presentation of your homemade wines tells others that your wine is important to you, that you’ve spent time on it, and are proud of the contents. The label, like gift-wrap on a present, is the first impression others will take from your wines, and as such, they are an important piece to the winemaking hobby. For that reason, once a year we dedicate this space to something other than techniques for pressing, fermenting, and aging, and instead highlight your artistic side.
This year, from the dozens of entries we received at the WineMaker offices, we picked our top four — an out of this world Cabernet, a label that pieces together two hobbies, one that gets our spidey sense tingling, and a unique label for a unique late harvest wine. Plus, we let you, the reader, choose your favorite for the Reader’s Choice Award based on voting at our Facebook page.
Thank you to all of our readers who submitted labels into this year’s label contest, and the generous sponsors who donated such great prizes!
GRAND
GOLD
SILVER
BRONZE
READER’S CHOICE
Honorable Mention
My hobby may be winemaking, but by day I am a commercial artist. I use house paint on a daily basis at my job, so when I have the opportunity to create artwork at home I don’t spend that obscene amount of money at art supply stores — I do all of my shopping at the local hardware store. To combine my two interests, I also design the wine labels for our…
After crawling our way out of the large piles of boxes, envelopes and packages that have been collecting on the floor of the editorial department for the past two months, we managed to get to the other side of the office and recruit some co-workers judging the label contest. The boxes were ripped, the envelopes opened and the bottles were displayed under the bright lights of the judging table. The multiple personalities…
