Multi-Color Corporation (MCC) recently added a painter’s element into its label for Storm King Wine Co. to make a bright, colourful, and tactile pop which resulted in an award-winning design.

Storm King Wine Co. is a new venture from established winemakers located in the Granite Belt, Australia, who were after a unique and sustainable label that reflected the winemaking techniques it uses to make wines full of texture and flavour.

The labels were printed digitally in four colour process plus white, on the unique Grape Waste material.

The client reviewed a range of our sustainable materials before settling on Grape Waste, an uncoated paper that contains 15 per cent recycled content via grape waste sourced from wine production to create a natural fleck appearance.

A suite of embellishments were applied to create the desired look, with the design including a prominent ‘paint brush stroke’ element.

MCC created this by adding a glossy high build screen over a textured emboss to create both the texture of the brush strokes and the look of paint.

The high build was also applied to the vintage and variant, and a sandpaper varnish applied to the background for additional texture.

“Digital was the ideal choice for running this label, which was a short run requirement across three varieties so therefore setup waste was minimised. The labels were ganged three across the web so we could reduce the tooling costs for the customer, rather than print the run as three separate items,” MCC said.

“The Indichrome inks used were perfect for the uncoated porous nature of the material, producing dense and vibrant colours. Plus, the inks are certified for both home and industrial compostability.”

The effort that went into these labels was not done in vain – the 2021 Shiraz Malbec variety won the award for Excellence in Sustainability at the Digital Labels & Packaging Awards 2022. The recognition was for being a digitally printed job that have exemplary environmental credentials.