Custom Wine Boxes

How a wine box keeps bottles apart

A wine box is a tall carton with something inside that stops the bottles touching each other.

A single-bottle box is often a tall tuck-end carton or a corrugated box with a short base insert that holds the bottle upright. Multi-bottle boxes use partitions: slotted strips of board that slide together into a grid, one cell per bottle.

Carry boxes for two to six bottles often have a handle cut into the top flaps or a separate handle that folds up. The handle has to take the full weight, so it needs a board strong enough not to tear at the cut.

• Partitions give each bottle its own cell
• Handle cut-outs must carry the full load
• Single-bottle boxes often use a base insert

Shipper or presentation box?

A shipper is built to protect bottles in transit. A presentation box is built to look good when handed over.

A corrugated shipper with dividers or moulded pulp inserts is what the trade uses to send bottles by courier. It is plain or lightly printed, and the inside does the protecting.

A presentation box, in printed paperboard or wrapped rigid board, is for the shop counter, the cellar door or the gift table. It protects against scuffs, not drops, so if it has to travel it usually goes inside a shipper.

Sizing around the bottle

Measure the actual bottle, because wine bottles of the same volume are not the same shape.

A typical 750ml still wine bottle is roughly 75-80mm across and about 300mm tall, but Burgundy shapes are wider at the base and sparkling bottles are wider and heavier again. A box sized for one will not fit the other.

A few millimetres of clearance on the diameter is enough, and the height has to include the closure, whether that is a cork and capsule or a screw cap. Too much room lets bottles knock together. Too little makes them hard to pack and to lift out. Send us each bottle's measurements, closure on, and we set the cells around them.

• Still, Burgundy and sparkling bottles differ
• Measure height with the closure on
• Small clearance on the diameter

Board choice and weight

Glass is heavy, so the board has to be chosen for the number of bottles as much as for looks.

One bottle sits well in E-flute corrugated or a heavy paperboard carton. Three, six or twelve bottles add up quickly, and the base and handle carry most of that load, so B-flute or double-wall board is the usual step up.

Rigid board looks the most premium and suits one or two bottles. It is heavy, does not fold flat once made, and takes up far more room in storage than a corrugated box of the same size.

Printing a wine box

Wine boxes are often stored in cool or damp places, so the print and coating should cope with that.

Cellars and stockrooms can be humid. Uncoated board can soften and scuff, and a dark solid colour shows rub marks first. A coating or varnish helps the outside stay clean, and kraft board hides wear better than white.

Print on a shipper is usually simple, because the box is about protection. A presentation box carries the label artwork, vintage or tasting notes, and it can take foil, embossing or a spot finish where the box is part of the gift. Tell us what the box must show, such as the alcohol content, and we lay it out with your design on the proof.

Wine box or shipping box?

A divided wine shipper is the right pick for sending bottles; a presentation wine box is for handing over, and goes inside a plain shipping box when it has to travel.

A printed presentation box on its own is not packaging for posting bottles. Sending wine by courier needs a box and insert designed for transit: a divided wine shipper, or a presentation box packed with padding inside a shipping box. Tell us how your bottles travel and we recommend the shipper, the outer box or both.

Dividers and inserts are cut for one bottle shape, so a range with many bottle sizes is better served by a box or insert for each size, under one outer design, than by one box stretched to fit them all.