The 5 Factors for Choosing the Right E-Label Tool: A Guide for Winemakers

EU Regulation 2021/2117 brings new requirements for wine labels that directly affect winemakers and vineyards. They mean adapting your labeling, and they open a new channel to talk to your customers.

An e-label is more than a digital copy of your back label. It is a tool for building transparency and trust. This guide covers what to look for when you choose an e-label tool, how to put the new rules into practice, and how the right tool can present your wines and your story while adding real value for your business and your customers.

This piece stays at the level of first orientation, the five factors to weigh while the topic is still new to you. When you reach the point of actually comparing providers and committing, our current and more detailed guide on how to recognize a professional e-label provider turns these factors into a checklist you can test before the label goes to print.

The 5 Factors at a Glance:

1. Legal Conformity
2. User-Friendliness
3. Flexibility (Avoiding Vendor Lock-in)
4. Design
5. Value Beyond the Mandate

1. What Your E-Label Must Do: Ensuring Legal Compliance Made Easy

EU Regulation 2021/2117 sets clear standards for wine labeling. Ingredient lists and nutritional information now have to be precise and clearly visible. A good E-Label tool takes that worry off your plate. It keeps your labels compliant without forcing you to wade through the regulations yourself, and it stays current as the requirements change, so you stay on the safe side.

2. Easy to Use, Even for Tech Newbies

An E-Label tool should be usable by people who don’t work with technical applications every day. You won’t update a wine label often, so the tool has to work intuitively and reliably on the rare occasion you need it. Look for a clear interface where the steps are logical and easy to follow. Good support matters just as much: quick and helpful when you have a question. The point is to let you get back to making wine.

3. Why You Shouldn’t Be “Trapped” in a Solution

Vendor lock-in means being tied to one E-Label solution even when the terms get worse, for example through steep price increases. Many bundled solutions can leave you in exactly that spot.

Look for E-Label tools that keep you independent and flexible. A big part of that is the use of URL shorteners. They let you change the target link of your E-Labels at any time, without creating new QR codes. That matters because the codes stay on wine bottles for years.

An E-Label tool based on open-source technology (software whose source code is publicly accessible and modifiable) offers additional security. It ensures that you will have access to the software in the future, regardless of the fate of the provider. This way, you maintain control and avoid falling into an unwanted dependency.

4. Your E-Label as a Showcase for Your Winery

With quality wine, every detail counts, from the salesroom to the label. An E-Label is a digital touchpoint with your winery, so it should fit and strengthen your brand.

A good E-Label tool takes design and user experience seriously. It should be functional, visually appealing, and consistent with your brand. Look for a solution with a strong default design that still allows real customization, so your E-Label informs the reader and represents your brand at the same time.

5. How Your E-Label Can Do More Than Comply

A well-built E-Label gives you a real chance to add value for your customers and put your winery in a good light. Choose an E-Label tool that goes past the basics and offers features that improve the customer experience.

An outstanding E-Label tool enables you to use additional features in a legally compliant way. For instance, interactive elements such as videos about wine production or the stories behind your wines can be integrated, without being directly on the E-Label itself. With solutions like “Scan with Glasswise”, you can scan the QR code via the Glasswise website, displaying additional information legally. This provides a platform to legally and directly engage with your customers, whether through feedback options, newsletter sign-ups, or links to your online shop.

These features turn the E-Label into a marketing tool that informs, engages, and holds attention. It strengthens the relationship with your customers and supports both the sales and the image of your winery.

Choosing your tool

Legal compliance, user-friendliness, flexibility, appealing design, and value beyond the mandate: those five factors decide whether an E-Label tool is a box you tick or a genuine part of your wine brand. Take the time to weigh them, and the tool you pick will do more than satisfy a regulation. It will create value that strengthens your brand and gives your customers a reason to come back.

When you move from weighing these factors to choosing a provider, our guide to recognizing a professional e-label provider gives you the six requirements to test before you print, and the questions to put to every provider before you sign.