Two of everyone’s least favourite tasks are cleaning bottles and removing bottle labels. But this does not have to be a chore.
CLEANING & STORING YOUR BOTTLES
As soon as you empty a wine bottle, just put a little water in it right away. When you’re ready to clean and store it, simply rinse the bottle thoroughly with hot water until it runs perfectly clear, remove the label and shrink wrap and store the bottle upside down in your wine box.
Cleaned bottles stored upside down will ensure dust or insects cannot contaminate them. And they’ll be ready without any additional preparation to bring back to Wine Kitz Orleans to be sanitized for your next bottling.
If your bottles are very dirty, soak them overnight in a solution of hot water, bleach and dishwasher detergent. You may need a bottle brush to reach the stubborn spots. Never use dish or hand soap to wash your bottles. Rinse your cleaned bottles well and store them upside down in your wine box.
It’s important to know that it only takes 1 dirty bottle to contaminate your entire batch of wine at bottling and void our guarantee. We’d hate to have that happen to you.
REMOVING BOTTLE LABELS
Now that Wine Kitz Orleans has phased out the old peel & stick and wet & stick labels, and switched to dry peel and vinyl labels, label removal has never been easier!
Dry Peel Labels
Dry peel labels contain paper, and can tear when you try to peel them off a cool or cold bottle.
To avoid tearing the label, fill the bottle with hot water until the glass heats up. Or pop the empty bottle into the microwave for 20 seconds (no more than that). This softens the glue and the label peels off in one piece and leaves no residue. Never soak dry peel labels.
Vinyl Labels
Because there is no paper in vinyl labels, they do not tear when you peel them off and they leave no residual glue. It is best to peel the labels off when you are cleaning your bottles for storage.
If you do leave vinyl labels on your empties, it is best not to store them in extreme hot or cold (garages or sheds in the summer or winter). These conditions deteriorate the glue, and will leave a glue film on the bottle when you peel them off.
If you have any bottles with a glue film, they can easily be cleaned with a paper towel and a product call Goo Gone™, which can be found at most hardware stores. Customers tell us that equal parts rubbing alcohol and dish soap work well too.
Other Labels
If you do come across any wet & stick labels still in your cellar, the best way to remove them is to put them in a container with water. They will fall off by themselves in an hour or so.