madeira bottle stenciling?

[mike segs]

hello all,

has anyone had experience with or know how one might go about recreating the stenciled "label" paint of a madeira bottle? the paints i've tried all peel off too easily

odd question, i know, but I made a batch of wine and want to pay homage to madeira with the painted label.

any insight would be much appreciated!

so's not to be a complete waste of forum space:
1974 Blandy's Sercial - really nice bottle. if i remember correctly, back label showed it was bottled in 1996, so it was my first experience with a vintage bottle that had been bottled pre-2004(all of them being d'oliveira bottlings) moderately aromatic nose that had a aromas of grapefruit pith, caramel, walnut & browned apples. the palate was a bit sweeter than i had expected for a sercial, but was more than balanced out but the searing lemon-like acidity that kicked my salivary glands into full tilt...the finish was perfect as well, gracing me with a grapefruit zest infused walnut oil-like bitterness. only complaint was that i wish it was a hair or two drier. overall an exceptional bottle that i savored over 3 days.

cheers,

Mike

[Glenn E.]

Mike,

I'm pretty sure that those stencils are not paint, but rather whitewash. (Which, technically, is paint... but it's not what most people think of as paint. But I digress.)

Whitewash is pretty simple stuff - you can even make it yourself if you're feeling industrious. But you can probably also buy it at Home Depot or Lowe's or someplace similar.

[Peter W. Meek]

It may be silk-screened. On a piece of cloth coated with an impervious coating, the design/lettering is drawn. Then the coating is removed where you want it to print (by hand, or by exposing a photo-sensitive coating). Then the cloth is placed over the surface to be printed, and the ink/paint is forced through the areas with no remaining coating, usually with a squeegee.

And it may be silk-screened enamel and then fired, which would fuse the enamel with the glass of the bottle. (This last would require doing the labels before filling the bottles.) This method is extremely durable.

Modern labeling is probably done with something like an ink-jet printer, using enamel and then firing.

Fairly easy to check the difference between stenciling and silk-screening (or ink-jet): In stenciling all interior unprinted areas must be connected to the main/outside unprinted areas by little bridges. With silk-screening there can be "floating" unprinted areas inside letters like "O"s and "P"s and "A"s.

[Eric Ifune]

I've seen the stenciling done by hand in Barbieto's cellar on one of Roy's Fortification Tours. The paint is actually dryish, almost like a powder and patted onto the stencil on the bottle. I don't think it's whitewash but more an enamel type paint.

[Peter W. Meek]

I've seen the stenciling done by hand in Barbieto's cellar on one of Roy's Fortification Tours. The paint is actually dryish, almost like a powder and patted onto the stencil on the bottle. I don't think it's whitewash but more an enamel type paint.

I didn't suspect that. True stenciling is very labor intensive. (The paint has to be very thick/dry to keep it from wicking by capillary action under the edges of the stencil.)

Were they full bottles? Or were they empty, and perhaps going on to a kiln where the enamel would be fused to the glass?

[Peter Reutter]

Two pictures from the MadeiraWineGuide chapter "About old bottles"
http://www.madeirawineguide.com/10madei ... d_bottles/

These pictures show stenciling as done by Edmundo Olim of Artur de barros e Sousa Lda.

about-edmundo-1-pic[1].jpg (145.34 KiB) Viewed 1066 times

I remember the white stuff really smelled like paint, with acetone/paint-thinner like aroma.
Why not ask the guy himself at a_b_s_lda@yahoo.com.br or absl@netmadeira.com
Regards
Peter

[mike segs]

Thanks everyone for all the insight!

[Peter W. Meek]

I note the bottles are empty, so it is possible they are yet to be fired to make the stenciling permanent.

[Eric Ifune]

I don't think they fired the bottles again. I believe the paint is an enamel type, sort of like spray paint.