When gifting a bottle of your homemade wine, nothing shows the recipient how much care went into the contents inside the bottle than the appearance on the outside. For that reason, we have put a value on the design of your homemade labels for the past 22 years with our annual Amateur Label Contest. Each year, the staff at WineMaker gather and debate the merits of whimsical vs. serious labels, colors schemes, fonts, imagery, the weight original artwork should hold, and anything else that a label brings to mind. This year’s contest was full of debate, with top honors going to blueberry mosaic of a loved pet narrowly beating out other crowd favorites. Following are our favorite labels from the hundreds submitted.
Lastly, a huge thank you to our sponsors who support this annual contest by donating fantastic home winemaking prizes!
GRAND
Scottsdale, Arizona
GOLD
Loveland, Ohio
SILVER
Bellingham, Washington
BRONZE
Romania
READER’S CHOICE
San Diego, California
HONERABLE MENTION
Lafayette, California
Kutztown, Pennsylvania
Mexico City, Mexico
Corrientes, Argentina
Woodland Hills, California
Orlando, Florida
Rock Hill, South Carolina
Oak Harbor, Washington
East Wenatchee, Washington
Los Olivos, California
Merrick Mouton
Lafayette, Louisiana
Ridgeway, Virginia
Ranchita, California
San Rafael, California
Woodstock, Georgia
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Shorewood, Illinois
Coventry, Connecticut
Lake Oswego, Oregon
Iran
DePere, Wisconsin
Sonoma, California
Grafton Township, Ohio
Sonoma, California
Bakersfield, California
We saw a lot of cool looking amateur wine labels in our 2023 label contest but nothing quite as unique as these. Check out these labels from Chateau Hetsakais.
We share our favorite amateur wine labels entered into WineMaker’s 2025 Label Contest — from a faceless woman and a woman’s face seemingly appearing in fermenting must, to a design for a Scottish fiddler and the wine color of the year.
