I bet you have already wondered whether there was a single person behind the wine label…
So who had this brilliant idea of inventing such an ingenious label?
While lithography was not invented in France but in Germany, it is thanks to Cyprien Gaulon (1777), a printer and lithographer from Bordeaux, that the process found a wide field of application.
This former calligraphy teacher gave a huge boost to this impressive art, because it was with the first wine labels (then called « vignettes ») that Cyprien Gaulon's company gained major prominence.
Until then, wine bottles were marked or stamped using coloured threads or a simple touch of paint.
Cyprien Gaulon thus revolutionised the authentication of wines' commercial origin through a printing process revealing the origin of the Grands Crus.
Cyprien Gaulon's former company was located at 60 rue Saint-Remi in Bordeaux.
