Saturday, December 7, 2013

How to Easily Remove Wine Labels from Bottles

I am starting a project that requires many wine labels. Acquiring the wine bottles was not a problem, but peeling off the labels was. I'd get started on a corner with my fingernail, make enough progress to create a nice little "dog-ear," and then it would start tearing. I sought out a solution, and I found one. Here's what I did, and it's far less trouble than some of the other ideas I saw. Furthermore, this method has worked 100% of the time.


Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.



With your fingernail, peel just enough to create a "dog-ear."


What you see on the bottle is a reflection, not label residue.


Once the inside has reached the desired temperature, place your bottles inside. Let them heat for about 5 minutes.



Yes, I know my oven needs to be cleaned.

With an oven mitt or hand towel, take bottles out. Glass is a poor conductor of heat, but not poor enough. Set them on a flat surface. Hold the top of the bottle with the towel or mitt, and use your free hand to carefully pull label away from bottle (use your dog ear).




The process was a piece of cake.



What did I do with the wine labels?




8 comments:

  1. I tried it with four wine bottles, the less expensive wine labels came right off, the more expensive ones didn't budge!

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  2. can't wait to try it this weekend! So the left over glue/gueee can then be taken off with WD 40. That's my plan and hoping it works. Thanks in advance! Happy New Years! Cheers!

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. For some reason, I don't get notified that there is a comment. I'm strictly an amateur.

    The thinner the label is, the tougher the process is. I lost a few that way. Some expensive labels use thick paper, some don't. I know of no other way to remove them.

    If you are just trying to get label off without the desire to preserve it, give the oven trick a try first, and if it doesn't work, soak the bottle in warm water, and scrape off what you can with something that scrapes :). Then get an SOS pad, and scrub off the excess paper and glue. No need for goo-gone or WD-40......just an unnecessary mess.

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  5. This works amazing!! So happy I saw your posting!
    I do agree with one of the comments, the more expensive the wine the thicker the glue so takes longer in the oven.
    Used Cooper's Hawk wine bottles, and the regular bottles were easy, the Lux bottles took about 10 minutes.

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  6. I did this recently with 2 doz bottles after soaking a few in water with dismal results, it is so Amazing all the labels came off - if there was a problem just stuck bottle back in oven. I was not trying to save them and one a few ripped. I used baking soda, and a bit of New Dawn soap- mixed together and scrubed with steel wool to take off any residue if I had to remove labels again I would only use this method

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  7. I ended up cracking 2 of my bottles because you didn't say you should not work over a cold surface after taking it out of the oven. The labels melted but I wasn't worried about that. I just wanted the clean wine bottles.

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  8. I had 83 wine bottles to try and remove the labels from. I started out by soaking a few of them in the tub with hot water and Dawn dish soap for over an hour. It was impossible, and the thought of doing 83 bottles this way was not going to work. I found your method and I was thrilled to find that this way worked like a charm for me! These are for my daughter's wedding so I didn't care about saving the labels. All I have to do is use some Goo Gone to get the sticky stuff off and I'm good to go. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

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