Saving Your Wine Labels

Admittedly, I am unusually preoccupied with documenting my life in every way imaginable.  So, naturally,  I save my wine labels, and have since my mid 20's.  Luckily, I didn't start earlier or I would be stuck with the painful reminder of my Peach Reunite days.  Yikes.  I do find great enjoyment looking back at the labels, which I put in a wine dossier along with tasting notes, who I was with, the occasion and the meal.  The photo above is this morning, me finally getting around to putting label removers on the bottles from the holidays.

I used to soak labels off in hot soapy water, but I can only assume that the wine industry, as a whole, has discovered some new SUPER STICKY glue that they all now use to affix their labels.  It is almost impossible to soak them off.  I have used wine label removers in the past, but I recently ran out and could not find them locally.

Tips & Ideas:
Wine Label Lifters: I found these at Sur le Table online. $9.99 for 10.  Try Amazon as well.  Increasingly, I only save special occasion labels or ones from really memorable wines.  My wine dossier was given to me as a gift years ago and it is full. I found that Amazon carries this very one, which I like because of the large pages.  There are several types and you could certainly even make your own.

I have also taken photos of the wine on the table with the meal and included that with the label on the page. I find that I enjoy this the most when looking back. I have also sometimes included a photo of me and my husband with a wine on our anniversary in the dossier, for example.  It is a great family treasure to leave to your children, as a archive, letting them know just how much you had to drink to get through raising them.

However you choose to archive your labels, they are truly special mementos from your liquid past.  You can photograph them with your phone and include them in your digital books, you can make a digital collage of wine you drank that year or even save the labels over several years and make wallpaper for a tasting room.  I am sure a decoupage project for the less craft-challenged could render a darling wine-label covered piece. Lastly, once you remove the labels there are many things to do with the bottles.  Pottery Barn sells wine-bottle chandeliers--which I am plotting as I write to coerce my husband to re-create. I have seen wine bottle chimes, white lights stuffed down inside wine bottles making tables glow, etc. You can also save the bottles for homemade gifts such as flavored vinegars or infused spirits (recipes to follow on future posts) with homemade labels and raffia tied tops.

Or you can go green, enjoy your wine and promptly throw that bottle and its label in the recycle bin!


Cheers!