From the Ancient Egyptians to the Present Day: History and Evolution of Labels in the World of Wine.

In the collective imagination, when one thinks of a work of art, a painting by a great painter or the magnificent creation of an excellent sculptor immediately comes to mind. In reality, works of art can take on different forms and this epithet can be assigned within multiple sectors. A country like Italy that lives off a boundless fame and is linked, among other things, to the great sculptural, pictorial and architectural creations that fill schoolbooks all over the world, can certainly include among its unparalleled achievements the production of Wine which, in many cases, reaches very high quality levels to the point of being considered a true masterpiece: the mastery of knowing how to transform what nature provides us into timeless excellence, just like a great painting or a great fresco. Just like a work of art. And just as in works of art, value is often linked above all to the aesthetic beauty of a creation, in Wine, value takes on a double meaning: the qualitative one of the product and the aesthetic one of the bottle.

In fact, over the years, many producers have begun to understand that if you combine aesthetics with quality, you can reach a completion that perfectly integrates the pleasure of the palate and the senses, with the gratification of the eyes. And those who spend money to buy a bottle of wine (let's remember that there is also a large market of collectors who will never drink that wine but will jealously display it for their entire lives), ultimately seek both situations and when they find them, the satisfaction leads to a repeat purchase and both parties (buyer and seller) win.

Labels in history

Probably the first label or, better, what could be considered the ante litteram label, was devised by the ancient Egyptians which they affixed to the amphorae containing wine after sealing them with mud and clay. The amphorae were tapered at the base and the data relating to the content, the year of production, the origin and the name of the producer were written on the closure: on some amphorae found one can even read "red wine from the best grapes".

At the end of the eighteenth century then, the label underwent a radical transformation following the invention of lithography by the Czechoslovakian Alois Senefelder: the system made it possible to print, among other things, also a fair amount of wine labels. The process consisted of drawing a sketch to be reproduced on a stone and passing the inked roller over the latter: in this way, it was possible to obtain several copies of the same label.

However, the inventor of the label as we understand it today, it seems to be the Swiss Henri-Marc , owner of the Maison De Venoge, who in 1840 proposed his own bottles of Champagne with illustrated labels similar to those of today. The development of the glass bottle industry and the extension of communication routes, moreover, allowed the commercial movement of an increasing number of wine bottles, which made the use of the label increasingly indispensable also for greater customer protection .

Labels in modern times

The first labels were in fact almost always generic, printed on rectangles of white paper and reported only the type of wine, but it was now necessary to also indicate the name of the producer or bottler, if not even the year of production, often written by hand on basic labels that were always the same.

As for Italy , the first users of labels were the Piedmontese producers , suppliers of the Royal House, and Sicilian producers. In the historical archive of Santa Vittoria d'Alba, for example, some bottles of "modernly labeled" Cinzano Vermouth dating back to the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century are still preserved today. The Italian labels of the 19th century do not generally exalt the quality or uniqueness of the wine, but give ample space to the imagination and draw inspiration from peasant life or heraldry, reproducing coats of arms or medals belonging to the producing families: with the passing of the years, however, the need of producers to identify their products is increasingly increasing and each one tries, especially in the field of fortified and fortified wines, to create labels that prominently display honorable mentions, medals, trophies and plaques earned during exhibitions and fairs.

Obviously, the criteria for packaging labels differ significantly depending on whether quality wines, liqueurs, vermouths or table wines are produced. A prestigious example is that of Romanèe Conti, an unrivalled Burgundy brand, which reiterates the rule according to which the more valuable the wine, the more essential its label must be: a white square on which, in black, is reported, in addition to the simple indication of the wine, the autographed signature of the company manager.

The advent of decorations

At the beginning of the last century, however, decorated labels began to appear : landscapes, picturesque characters or fauna to which the Belle Epoque decoration brought its ornamental richness. This continued until 1950, the year in which the law imposed a more pedantic, didactic, much talked about label, in which the informative literature often appeared verbose and indefinable. Starting from the last century, however, a new printing process was established that allowed the presentation of a label that associated the typolithographic characters with the color: four-color process. Here the cliché replaces the stone: through 4 or 5 typographic impressions, colour mixtures are obtained which give the label a dazzling appearance.

But printing techniques evolve at great speed and Today there is a great variety of realization systems that use the most diverse materials (plastic, aluminum, PVC fabrics, etc.) up to labels that seem to be an integral part of the bottle. While it is true that from their eighteenth-century creations to today, almost everything has changed, the need to make the bottle recognizable through an attractive and didactic "signal" that is still unavoidable has remained unchanged: the label.

However, it (the label), has become over time, also a means to launch messages related to corporate values ​​or to try to represent in material form, what is the character of the product itself by finding a compromise between its ornamental personality and the didactic needs imposed by the law. After all, if the eye also wants its part, the dress with which to dress the bottles of wine cannot be underestimated and today more than ever, it has also become a symbol of corporate recognition that allows the consumer to immediately identify, through the always identical replication of some "fixed points" beyond fantasy (e.g. the name of the company and its symbol, or a font always proposed the same), which is the producing Winery.

In a world where, unfortunately, we are still far from the cognitive awareness of wine and its purchasing criteria (pairing, personal taste, etc.), the aesthetics of the bottle also becomes a criterion of choice . As in every aspect of life, Beauty inevitably (but also unconsciously) gives positivity to situations or things and if, as we said at the beginning of this study, Wine can be considered a real “qualitative work of art” and as with every work of art, it will never have its equal among producers (even with the same production method and blend... the terroir makes the real difference here), why give up the beauty of its "dress" that completes it, giving it uniqueness?

Written by Carlo Attisano for mangiaebevi.it