Why do I need a bottle image for my wine review?
A picture of the bottle for the wine you’re reviewing makes a big difference to how polished and professional your review looks. Compare a review with no image (the default generic bottle — please don’t update it ;) and one that has both the bottle shot and label image (click on the magnifying glass under the bottle to see the label).
As well, a bottle shot makes it far easier for readers to find the wine you’ve reviewed when they’re in the liquor store and to remember it afterwards. Plus if they add your wine to their cellar journal, your bottle image is included there too.
You also do a service for the community as that bottle and/or label image gets associated with the wine’s UPC code and then every new vintage of that wine already has a bottle and/label shot associated with it. More tips on posting wine reviews here.
How do I add a bottle shot to a wine I’m reviewing that doesn’t have one?
If you’re reviewing a wine that’s already posted on the site by clicking on “Add My Review”, you can then go back to the page that now has your review. About half way down the page, you’ll see this link:
– Add bottle and/or labels shots for this wine
Click on that and go from there. (You’ll be permitted to do so as a reviewer of the wine.)
If you’re adding a new wine to the site that hasn’t been reviewed already, there’s a spot in the process to add a bottle and/or label shot with easy to follow steps.
Why can’t I just upload a picture that I take with my smartphone?
Pictures taken with smartphones often have poor lighting and angles making it difficult to see the bottle properly. As well, these shots often get distorted due to the standard sizing of the frame where we display bottles on the site, and they tend to look less professional.
With the tips below, you can easily find just about any wine bottle image online today.
How do I find a bottle or label image online to use?
The best place to find a bottle shot is the winery’s own web site. If you can’t find it there, you can e-mail to request one as they’re often happy to provide it given you’re reviewing their wine.
You can also try the liquor store web sites as many are also fine with you’re using those shots since your review helps to sell their wine. BC Liquor Stores, LCBO and SAQ all post bottle shots. Search and click through to your wine as you’ll often see a larger bottle or label shot on the page dedicated to that one wine.
If you see a magnifying glass, click on it to bring up a larger image that may work better. Either way, right mouse click over the bottle shot and save then on your computer, then upload to to the site.
You can do a Google image search for your wine to find bottle or label shots: the best way is to use the simplest version of the wine name ie Rosemount Shiraz rather than adding the vintage, region, etc. If you’re not sure about the image, go to the original site and ask permission to use it.
What size bottle shots should I use?
Please upload a full bottle shot that is 75 x 300 pixels or larger with same dimensions (higher than it is wide), otherwise they may get distorted. There should be no background colour or images, just the bottle.
Word documents, PDFs, png files and other formats will not upload properly. Please ensure you are using a jpeg or gif format for your bottle and label shots.
What size label shots should I use?
Having the close-up label in addition to the bottle shot is very helpful, so please try to add both if possible. Please upload a clear, close-up shot of the label for this wine that is 640 pixels wide x 721 pixels high or larger with same dimensions (higher than it is wide), otherwise it may get distorted.
Show a bit of the bottle a bit of the bottle above and below the label so consumers can see what type of wine it is visually, but mostly the label. Please include the label only, not other bottles or background design. This label is an important way that consumers will find your wine in the liquor store.
Tip: you can often find your wine’s close-up label on the LCBO’s site already if you go to a link like this: lcbo.com/app/images/products/0588996.jpg. Then all you have to do is replace the product number in that URL above, and sometimes you will need to add 1 or 2 zeroes at the start of the number to get it to work ie lcbo.com/app/images/products/0231860.jpg
Check that the bottle or label image is not copyrighted.
Before using any image, check that it is not copyrighted. You’ll notice that some sites use watermark symbols or names on their bottles so don’t use them.
Here’s an example of a UK retailer with their company name on the bottle. Here’s another example where the watermark is faint and down along the side of the image, but you would not use this either, even if you can edit/crop that watermark out.
The only other thing to look for is distinctive background design or reflection on the bottle that would identify it, ie you can see someone with their camera taking the picture in the bottle reflection: don’t use these.
Image Sources
I’ll start compiling sources where you can get bottle and label shots here. This list will be updated regularly.
Constellation Brands Agency: Ontario, BC, US, Italy, South Africa, France, Australia, New Zealand wines
This agency represents Inniskillin, but please refer to the link below for those bottle images.
For all other wines represented by Constellatio Brands, e-mail Matt DOT Melanson AT cbrands DOT com and request a lo-res jpeg of the wine that you are reviewing. Here are the wines this agency represents:
Banrock Station, Baron Phillipe de Rothschild, Barossa Valley Ebenzer, Black Sage, Blackstone, Brookland Valley, Clos du Bois, Drylands, E&E Black Pepper, Estancia, Fish Hoek, Flagstone, Flourish, Full Press, Hardys, Hogue, Jackson-Triggs, Kim Crawford, Franciscan, Le Clos Jordanne, Leasingham, Linden Bay, Marcus James, Mezzomondo, Monkey Bay, Mount Veeder, Mouton Cadet, Nicolas Laloux, Nk’mip, Nobilo, Open, Primal Roots, Robert Mondavi, Osooyos Larose, Paso Creek, Ravenswood, Revolution Red, Reynella, Ruffino, See Ya Later Ranch, Simi, Strut, Sumac Ridge, The Dreaming Tree, The People’s Wine, Tintara, Toasted Head, Trove, Vintage Ink, Woodbridge Mondavi
Inniskillin Winery, Ontario and BC
Login here with Inniskillin and icewine. For the wine you’re reviewing, click on “lo-res jpeg” and save to your computer then upload to the site.
Pelee Island Winery, Ontario
Download bottle images here: first choose the lines of wines you want ie VQA red, then you’ll see a variety of bottles. Put your mouse over the one you want, then right mouse click to save it to your computer, then upload it to our site.
Treasury Wine Estates Agency: Australia, U.S. and Italian wines
This agency represents hundreds of wines including: Annie’s Lane, Beringer, Black Opal, Castello di Gabbiano, Chateau St Jean, Coldstream Hills, Devil’s Lair, Etude, Fifth Leg, Greg Norman, Lindemans, Little Penguin, Matua, Penfolds, Saltram, Seaview, Seppelt, Rosemount, Stags’ Leap, Wolf Blass, Wynns, Yellowglen and many more.
Login here using my first name then a period followed by my last name (no spaces) then the password treasurywine. Choose the brand you want ie Beringer, then “Product Shots” then the particular brand line (if any) ie Founder’s Estate then check the wine(s) you want, then click on “download” upper left column.
For the drop-down called “download archive format” choose your computer operating system (ie Mac or Windows) and for the other drop-down called “download RGB as” choose low resolution JPEG. Save to your computer then upload with your review to our site.
Wine Bottle and Label Images
Natalie: Hi it’s Natalie and I’m back with a quick video on how to upload a bottle or label shot to go along with your wine review. It’s really easy, really quick but it makes such a huge difference on how polished and professionally your review looks. So if you look at this one as an example, Le Clos Jordanne, Heather has her review there, very nice. And there’s the bottle. If you click on this little magnifying glass underneath, that’s the close-up label shot. So let’s just compare that quickly with poor little Vina Herminia that doesn’t have a bottle shot. This is the generic default image that will show when there is no bottle shot.
So you can see not only does it not look as polished and professional, it’s actually not as helpful to readers who are following your reviews and want to find this wine in the liquor store. They want a visual, that’s much easier for them. Another reason is that you really do a solid to the community when you upload a bottle or label shot. Those images become associated with that wines UPC code. All future vintages of this wine and its reviews will already have the bottle and label shot associated with it. The more we all do this, the less we have to do it in the future.
Let us take a look at a few quick tips and areas where you can get these bottle shots, easily. The first is the winery’s own website. It’s a great source of bottle shots. You will often find them under a section called ‘Our Wines’ or ‘Reviews’ or ‘Our Product List’. Sometimes there’s also a section called ‘Trade’ or ‘Media’ because wine writers are always looking for these bottle shots.
I just randomly selected this bottle and I’m going to right mouse click on it and it’s going to bring out this kind of menu, ‘save picture as’. I created a folder called ‘Bottle Shots’. I saved it. The winery has a weird looking filename so I renamed it, ‘Eco Pelee Island Bottle’, It’s also more SEO friendly. I saved it and that makes it very easy to upload that to my computer. If we go back to that poor bottle shot and we go halfway down the page, there’s a link right there that says, “Add Bottle or Label Shots”. Clicking on that and then clicking on ‘Browse’ will bring up your own computer folder where you saved it. I won’t go through that right now, but that makes it very easy to upload the bottle. We’re going to leave poor Vina Herminia alone because we want a good example of a bad bottle shot or a non existent one.
Another area to go or to explore is at the liquor stores. They often have great label shots. The SAQ is excellent. So here it is, if I click on it, I get a larger version and with a right mouse click you can save it to your folder in an instant. BC Liquor stores have nice shots. LCBO, as well. LCBO … if you look, I’ve got this posted underneath this video. They also have images for their mobile app. You just use this URL, plug in the product code, which is already in the wine’s listing and there you go. Last great source is the agency for the wine. The Agent is always listed under the winery, here. Constellation Brands has lots of bottle shots. They represent lots of wines and you can download there.
The other thing you can do is a Google image search. If you’re not familiar with this, you just type in the wine’s name. By default you get web results but if you click on images, you get something like this. Often, the wineries own shots will come up and you can choose whichever shot looks the best. Again, right mouse click to save the image. Now one caveat with all this is be careful never to use a copyrighted bottle image shot. How do you know? The website may state that the info was copyrighted or you’ll often see a watermark like this on the bottle image. Over here we’ve got winesearcher.com, that is a New Zealand site that tends to have a lot of bottle shots. They have a watermark copyright symbol … so don’t use those. There’s plenty others out there. Many wineries and agencies are happy for you to use their bottle shots because you’re reviewing their wines. That’s good for them.
Anyway, I hope that helps. Let me know if you have any questions on this but it really, really adds to your wine review when you have a nice bottle shot. Cheers.
