Package Design | packagedesignmag.com

When owner and president Gene Pierce founded Glenora in 1977, he used a label image that evokes the Finger Lakes District of upstate New York – the Glenora Falls that cascade into Seneca Lake near his winery in Dundee, Yates County. Now, some three decades later, he’s revamping his labels with the falls and other images that suggest the area. Their new shimmering look is made possible by the technical prowess of the prepress team and their HP Indigo press at Logotech Inc., Fairfield, NJ.

“When we created our first label, it was a whole different world,” Pierce says. “We needed to transition away from paper and glue, and we needed a whole new look.” He explains that Glenora was the first winery in the area. “Today there are 60 wineries and the area has evolved into a tourist destination. Glenora has also prospered with a restaurant and the Inn at Glenora Wine Cellars that are on the property. “We’re the only winery that has an Inn in the area,” he says.

At the suggestion of a neighboring winemaker, Anna Zugibe, Pierce retained Christine Witte of Classic Impressions, Great Meadows, NJ, and designer Erin Kelly, Warwick, NY, to create new labels that would have outstanding shelf presence and withstand the moisture of an ice bucket. “It’s been wonderful all the way along,” Pierce says of the process.
 
Special Effects That Stick
A 24-year label industry veteran, Witte has spent the last four years as a printing reseller to high end companies. She’s a great fan of digital printing because of the special visual effects you can get and because of the quality it delivers. “The registration is remarkable,” she says, “and there are no plates or plate changes to drive up the cost. You just don’t get the sharpness and clarity from traditional methods that you do on an HP Indigo.”

Witte explains that she and Kelly worked with Anita Sparrow, art director and operations manager at Logotech to come up with the right look. “We chose a silver metallized BOPP film for the substrate with an adhesive that will adhere to glass in cold, wet conditions,” Witte says. “The color is a PMS yellow but appears as metallic gold.” HP Indigo presses support a wide range of media and substrates and offer the ability to print on plastic films, such as PVC, PET and PE.

“Then we experimented with using a small percentage of white to cover parts of the film to create the reflecting effect,” Sparrow continues. “Because you’re using very small dots, it’s a complex process. That’s the beauty of the HP; you can look and then tweak. You can’t do that conventionally because of cost. A designer can take the time to make something special. We do this for many of our customers. We work hand in hand.”

“We can try a couple of different things and show them to the client,” Witte says. “They can choose what they like. They can apply the press sample to a bottle and decide what they think.

“Some 20 different varietals have the new waterfall labels,” she continues. “The Lake Series labels came next. The owner’s daughter loves to sit in an Adirondack chair on the dock at the lake and watch the sunset. That’s the image we’ve captured in this series. We’re working on the final three that will have images from Yates County.”

To Gene Pierce, the labels capture the pleasure of watching his family and guests enjoy the peace and beauty of the winery he’s built and nurtured for a generation.

“The thing that stands out for me is that the process Logotech uses creates the shimmering effect of the lake at sunset,” Pierce says. To him, the label is more than just a graphic. “Two of these chairs are on each patio at the Inn,” he adds, “so it’s not just a picture stuck on a piece of paper.”