New HERMA self-adhesive material for wine labels: A whiter shade of pale

“Young gun” winemakers have been creating a stir among wine lovers and experts for some years. Resorting to old grape cultivation and wine making traditions, they like to jettison unnecessary baggage in label design: baroque fonts and cream-coloured designs are frowned upon. Straight lines, clear fonts, and a purist layout are now in vogue – if possible, on a white or even high white background. For such cases, HERMA has extended its range of self-adhesive materials for wine bottles, adding two new white papers: HERMAfelt white (grade 313) and HERMAfelt high white (grade 314). Both are wet-strength, uncoated, textured papers with an exciting tactile feel. On top of that, HERMAfelt high white provides excellent wet opacity: even after a long time in an ice bucket, labels made from this material show no unsightly wet stains, maintaining their clean appearance until the last drop of the bottle. HERMAfelt high white requires no special barrier coating – this reduces costs for printers. Both materials offer great versatility in the choice of printing methods. Flexo and offset printing as well as digital printing create excellent results, even though both papers are quite demanding due to their structure.

Comprehensive ice bucket tests

In both cases, the multi-layer adhesive 62W, which has been developed especially for wine labels, ensures excellent adhesion even under moist conditions – just like in all other materials from the HERMAexquisite portfolio. This has been confirmed by extensive ice bucket tests in HERMA’S in-house laboratory. “The 62W, a dispersion adhesive, offers label printers a very good alternative to traditional hotmelt adhesives – with adhesive characteristics that are at least as good, if not far superior processing characteristics”, says HERMA sales director Ralf Drache. “Massive adhesive bleed or very dirty tools are therefore now a thing of the past.” Moreover, the adhesive is ISEGA-certified for direct contact with foodstuffs.

By now, the successful HERMAexquisite portfolio comprises a total of 27 products, including textured and moisture-resistant papers as well as coated papers, aluminium papers, and white or transparent films.