Exploring the Realm of Wine Bottle Decorating One Design at a Time

From custom artwork recreation to hand painted labels, etching is the most authentic and artistic way?to capture your brand's essence. If you'd like to learn how we continue to push the boundaries of what's possible in wine bottle decorating, here's a closer look at our partnership with Realm Cellars.

BEHIND THE BOTTLE

Realm Cellars?has been etching large format bottles with BERGIN since 2014. Every single label we have produced for them over the years comes with unique and bespoke detail.

We consider the Realm series to be a collection of some of the most complex etched and painted bottles we produce. Their labels continue to push the capabilities of artisanal painting on glass, creating one of a kind works of art inside and outside the bottle.

DESIGN DETAILS

Since Realm labels have color in every single layer, it is important for us to first figure out what phase of sandblasting to use. This is to ensure our etched layers and depth allow the correct color layers to be later applied in painting. The juxtaposition of glass and painted surfaces is what brings richness and character to these hand-etched bottles.

Thanks to etching, we can balance immaculate simplicity with the most intricate detail.

THE TEMPEST

This label went through many iterations on Realm’s end, before settling on an original water painting of a storm rendered to tell the story of The Tempest. To recreate an original watercolor label via etching and hand painting is the definition of true artistry.

We are grateful to have our talented team of etchers and artists capable of transcending Realm’s artwork into a glass canvas.

THE ABSURD

Realm Cellars continues to bring us creative challenges with every new label introduced encouraging us to push the envelope in the world of etching and painting.

To date, The Absurd utilizes the most colors painted on a single bottle, 62 to be exact.

To understand the absurdity of this label, you need to know the full story behind its creation.

While we could spend as many hours talking about this label as it takes us to paint it, we’d rather you hear it from?Realm.

FIDELIO

Realm commissioned artist Sylvia Ji to create the art for this label, which draws on Mexican folk art and specifically Otomi textiles for inspiration. Ji, a graduate of the Academy of Art in San Francisco and a lifelong student of international culture and art, is known for a significant body of work with wide-ranging themes of femininity, love, life, and death. Her paintings, which have been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally, often depict the female form.?

For Fidelio, artist Ji chose a light yet lively color palette to reflect the white wine; the mask is her reference to the movie Eyes Wide Shut. The original work was done in acrylic on a wood panel.

Our artists worked meticulously on this series, etching and hand painting the different Realm wine stories on each of their large format wines.

BECKSTOFFER DR. CRANE VINEYARD

Creating the Dr. Crane label was a journey. Once Realm Cellars learned that the land where the vineyard now stands was once the site of St. Helena’s Chinatown; they were determined to pay homage to this fact on the label.

It was a San Francisco artist who created the artwork for this label. Working out of his basement studio in Chinatown, he created a 4’x4’ canvas with the proverb: “When drinking water, remember the source”?superimposed over traditional Chinese imagery.

When translating this piece of art into the glass medium, one of our goals was to create a sensory experience - much like wine tasting. Etching is a perfect example of how we are able take that experience to the next level. When creating texture and definition on the bottle, we allow for tactile and visually stimulating sensations that add to the aromas, flavors, and colors from inside the bottle.?

MOONRACER ESTATE

When Realm Cellars met Spanish artist Sergio Albiac, they thought of his work as striking, modern and abstract. Surely something that would play well on one of their new labels.

Once Realm Cellars approached the artist about Moonracer and explained its name’s derivation from the Wappo Native Americans, Sergio wanted to develop a label that would incorporate art, science, and nature - just like the Native Americans blended it throughout their lives as means of survival and pleasure.

To create this label, Sergio developed an algorithm using data Benoit provided from weather stations on the Estate, including temperature, wind, and solar radiation throughout the 2014 growing season (the first vintage of Moonracer). He then inserted the data into the algorithm, and the computer was able to “read” the information and produce abstract images.

Since there was not enough data to create a unique label for each bottle of wine, all 4800 labels are different - much like our etching process, where every bottle is done by hand and is a unique, one-of-a-kind collectors' piece.

“Where the practical meets the dreamer,

and perseverance converges with sheer luck,

where intellect meets instinct,

and science dances with art,

where the paradox is embraced...

that’s where Realm lives.”

– Realm Cellars

BRINGING ALL DETAILS TOGETHER

From sleek, traditional designs to abstract bottle art (and everything in between!), our team of artisanal etchers and painters consistently inspire with their hand-painted masterpieces.

While etching requires meticulous attention to detail, it produces an unparalleled texture and contrast that no other process can match...

Contact us to see if these 3D-like bottles are right for your brand.