Investigation & Analysis : Lis 33

By Petronella Salvi

The first image that one has of any article, in particular wine, perfume or cosmetics, is its label ! This either attracts one's further attention, or one seeks it out because it conveys the message that one wishes to find, or one recognises it as being THE product that one desires to acquire. The label is an invitation as well as being the identity card of the product.
Today, wine labels come in all shapes and sizes to suit the taste of the creator, the producer and the consumer, and volumes of wine laws exist in every land to dictate and to regulate them. Furthermore, the purchaser wants the insurance and the confirmation that the container holds what he actually wants, or thinks that he is purchasing. All this, and many other elements beside, have to combine and to interact in order to achieve all the different aspects of these diverse messages in a coherent, attractive and legal label. Over the last two decades a crucial factor has been added. Security has become the byword in today's very competitive and complex world.

             In 1980, the passion for photoengraving and painting, combined with a taste for wine, incited Serge Desport, the son of a baker, to create “Libourne Imprimerie Service”, in Libourne, north of Bordeaux, in the heart of several wine appellations. The first years were devoted to his first love that of printing paintings of various artists. He printed for a small gallery and then for art publishers, but he needed to make a living and most of the artists were only able to pay him by offering him the originals of some of their works, which today still adorn the walls of his premises.

 

Ten years later, the young entrepreneur was honoured by the “Conseil Régional” (Regional Council) of Aquitaine, who awarded him their Development Trophy in recognition of the quality and excellence of the products made and the services rendered by LIS 33. This steadily growing concern then moved to the new industrial and technological development area of Libourne, close to the brand new motorway linking Bordeaux to Périgeux and Clément Ferrand.

The premises are custom built, elegant, airy and speak of quiet efficiency and precision, concentrating on printing labels. The site houses the entire process from conception to the finished product and its delivery.

LIS 33 has a firm, loyal and expanding clientele and mutual trust, confidence and respect form the base of their relationship, which stretches from the winelands of Bordeaux and the South West, to the rest of France, Sicily, Lebanon too, and reaches across the continents to Argentine, Chile and South Africa. The company and its personnel find nodifficulty in conjugating the New World with the Old. In fact, in the art of creation, which is the true heart of its activities, no frontiers exist. Each label reflects the atmosphere of the birthplace of the wine it presents and introduces.

However, the company also prints bills, bank notes and other security banking documents for several organisations and countries. Promotional material, brochures, smart and innovative packaging material, headed note paper and envelopes are also printed. LIS 33 is today the leading label printer in the Bordeaux region.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Serge Desport, at the helm of LIS 33, is a pioneer in the design, creation, manufacture and development of the security label. This is his forte and his expertise. Unfortunately, many producers still seem to think that securing “their product” in this manner does not need to be a priority, especially here in Bordeaux where it is still often the case that their wine is marketed by a series of intermediaries. However, security is very much the affair of the final client and the middle man as well as the producer.
Unfortunately, in the mind of both the producers and the consumers, traceability, which has now become a household word, even if the execution of the concept is not yet entirely compulsory, is often misunderstood and confused with security.

What is a security label It is a technique by which a label can be rendered secure, that is to say it that cannot be falsified or copied. Such a technique has existed for over twenty years. There are different levels of security labelling. The first techniques created security labels, containing elements that were visible and perceivable by the public without the intervention of specialised equipment and by the naked eye.
There are a variety of techniques and methods currently used. The more recent, and the speciality of LIS 33, are those security labels that interiorise and integrate the security elements within the label itself and that are only perceivable with specialised equipment. This process is highly sophisticated and executed by several techniques, the details of which are, for obvious reasons, top secret !!!

However, some of the current techniques revolve around watermarked and other highly technologically, if not scientifically, customised paper products, microchips, metallic micro script, special inks, metal based components, etc. and it is supremely evident that the techniques have to be unique and to resist counterfeit, therefore perpetually innovative and restrictive.

Today the 2005 Bordeaux Futures campaign is an excellent illustration. Firstly, the wine merchant and then his clients, particularly investors and collectors, but also restaurateurs and auction houses, who invest considerable sums of money in each exquisite bottle of rare wine, demand to be assured that they are purchasing authentic merchandise ! Certain wines have reached the status of “super luxury goods” with astronomical sums of money involved.

 Fundamentally, there is no difficulty in persuading the producers of this category of wine, or any other truly luxury product for that matter, to invest in the relatively modest cost of a security label for his product. Here the interest is mutual and many of the top Bordeaux châteaux have already been using one or another form of security label for a long time.

The problem consists in convincing those producers who have no desire, no interest or no wish, to go the expense of a security label. Basically, this is often due to a lack of knowledge of its inherent value. Not only the most expensive products are falsified as we have all experienced at one time or another – unfortunately, more often than is acceptable !
The potential loss of business and profit ought to be enough to tip the balance in favour of securing one’s label, however modestly or basically. Obviously, a producer, or a wine merchant, who has little respect for the ultimate consumer of his wine and who indulges in dishonest practice himself, will never be converted or convinced.

Moreover, there is an enormous and, regrettably, a rapidly expanding market for falsified and copied products worldwide, but particularly in the newer markets where luxury goods have only recently been available and where people are discovering the excitement of wine collecting. Everything can be made to order !Alas, counterfeiters flourish and their techniques are only a tiny step behind the inventors of security measures. Their order books are bursting.

 

Custom authorities, as well as police forces, are exceedingly interested in all security techniques. It would be much better for all if security labelling were made compulsory by law, but this utopia is still some way off. LIS 33 is at the forefront of the development of innovative and brand new techniques and applications as well as research forms an important part of the activities of the company.
Sometimes the same techniques are used, but the application differs. The majority of its clientele produce wine for laying down and therefore the security label has to be able to retain the components of security for long periods of time without deterioration or loss and without being adversely affected by humid cellar conditions. Besides, extremely expensive bottles are not always stored in ideal circumstances, even if the storage is very secure and under surveillance.

The best label security lies in the combination of several techniques and applications and has to be affixed to the bottle in such a way as to be integrated into the fixing agent. The quality and composition of the paper used for printing is primordial for the quality and durability of the security label and its incorporated elements. The fabrication of such paper is one of the cornerstones of this complex process. The paper supplier of LIS 33 is held in very high esteem and greatly respected as the best producer of paper pulp.

Printing labels on supports other than paper are also being studied. On wood it looks beautiful, and the setting on the wood is good, but producing a properly adhesive label on wood is still problematical. This technique is used when printing packaging for wine, perfume, etc.

The tremendous success of LIS 33 is directly generated by the concept of security as implemented by Serge Desport, and Daniel Durand, his commercial manager, and the entire personnel. Security is viewed as an integrated synergy composed of different actions, which have to be coordinated logically and technically to arrive at a finished product worthy of the excellent standard of quality of the company.

 

This goes hand in hand with the service rendered to the client or the prospective client. A chain reaction has to be created to achieve cohesion and ensure competence. Serge Desport and Daniel Durand both emphasise that security is optimum when combined with traceability and close contact and interaction have been established with both suppliers and producers of traceability products, for example computerized (laser) and parallel traceability of paper, engraving versus just printing, and so much more.

 

The success lies in the combination and integration of older, time proven methods and techniques and brand new techniques of both printing and basic control measures of the product at the château.The same applies to all the other information that a producer wishes to figure on either the bottle or the label, to ensure the traceability of each and every one of his bottles of wine. This includes cross references to the parcel, the barrel, the palette and also the numbering of bottles in a variety of different ways.

 

Some information is engraved on, or pierced into, the label; other data is engraved onto the bottle itself. The global vision of the synergy does not end here, but also involves the physical lay - out of the château, its capability to ensure that the right wine ends up in the right bottle with the right label attached.

The question becomes even more sophisticated when it comes to monitoring by optic fibre to avoid satellite tracing. Nevertheless, at the same time it always still depends on common sense and logic. Today, technology exists to facilitate both security and traceability, but it constantly remains potentially subject to copy and to imitation !

The purely technological side of the equation is guaranteed by the excellent production material and printing presses used to print the labels. LIS 33 firmly beliefs in combining the time proven, ancient machinery and techniques with the latest ultra modern equipment – the art is to coordinate and to unify security into a coherent entity. It involves the management of very difficult and different techniques and requirements.
The ancient, very heavy equipment and the modern, very light machinery; which is more readily usable by counterfeit operations. Solutions have to be found or invented. Old machines have been transformed to perform tasks that the lighter, modern printing presses are incapable of performing with as much precision and regularity.

Excellent, highly professional, specialised personnel man the different work stations. Traditional printing on plates is still used for certain kinds of label and the company is immensely proud of their printing press made by the Swiss company of Gallus, which to them is the Rolls Royce in printing terms ! Adhesive labels are printed on the more modern line - printers.

Ironically, the original printers of adhesive labels were called “Garagistes” due to the small premises they operated from !! Incidentally, 25 year ago, LIS 33 not only printed these adhesive labels, but it also provided wine producers with the machine to affix the labels.

 

At that time, it was rare to own bottling lines capable of performing this task. An original, old style Heidelberg printing press was modified and is still used today to print certain labels.The new generation of traction printers, ideal for printing large series of labels (for wine shippers and producers of popular brands) are very successfully used and these are numerical machines, rather than thermal.

 

Although labels using glue remain cheaper than adhesive labels, very few still use them. Two full time technicians cherish and maintain all the presses and machinery. The security of the employees is ensured by excellent protection around all the machinery, which is installed in a spacious and airy facility awash with sunshine and natural daylight.

Printing is no longer the grimy job with the terrific noise of days gone by and protective clothing and ear protection are not only available, but obligatory. However, a lot of standing is obviously unavoidable.

The ink, another element in the construction of a security label, differs depending upon the machine or press and the procedure used. The technical advancement of ink fabrication is almost futuristic, while time tested, traditional methods are integrated into the process.
Highly sophisticated technology and creative knowledge and experience are required to produce durable and true - to - colour ink.

Some inks contain a mixture of ink and varnish, whilst special inks are produced, as in the Bretagne region of France, to contain infinitesimal quantities of sand, which procures an exciting sensorial, tangible texture. Others choose ink that is exceedingly complicated to make and therefore exceptional. However, ink remains fragile and fades with time and this has to be taken into consideration, in spite of tremendous and ongoing progress.

The techniques of applying and fixing the security label have to be taken into serious consideration throughout the entire process in order to ensure that the security elements remain compatible with existing labelling procedures and the labelling equipment. They have to be appropriate for the correct and secure fixing of the security labels, or have to be adapted or changed. Rigorous control is crucial during the labelling and the storage of such labels; once they leave the premises of LIS 33 they have to be strictly surveyed and monitored. Complete trust is essential.

Once the decision is taken to use security labels, LIS 33 accompanies its clients every step of the way. It is not evident to the layman in security matters, which most of us are, to fathom all that this encompasses.

 

An entire security process and mechanism has to be evolved and created for the producer who takes the vital step and joins the ranks of the LIS 33 clientele. This links up with customer care and creating a comprehensive and durable relationship between the producer and his printer.

The human factor and reciprocal confidence is fundamental and form an indispensable part of the profession of the security label printer and his personnel. Clearly, there is the financial impact, which is more and more important due to the present circumstances of many wine producers, especially against the background of the contradiction in the market situation of Bordeaux wine. But more often the problem is relational.

The person who is persuaded of the sense of, and necessity for, security labels may not always know where to turn, nor have a way of measuring either the competence or the honesty of the service provider. Usually the main hurdle remains the technical points. This process can take weeks of discussion to ensure total mutual understanding and to fine tune the proposed product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The decision by the client to invest in a security label will inevitably mean that the expertise and creativity of the “creation department” will be called upon. In all probability a label already exists and one that closely resembles or that looks exactly like the one the customer already uses, will be created.
However, several producers see this as an ideal opportunity to redesign the image of their wine, especially in the New World, where the label is very often designed from scratch for a brand new winery. The well equipped, spacious and interconnected creation laboratories are situated above the offices and the printing facilities.

These consist of the office of the chief designer, the design workshop, followed by a room equipped for the creation of the paste-up labels and then a room for the creation of the prototype paper. All the different, interlinked aspects of creating and designing enjoy the most sophisticated apparatus and computers, but these designers remain craftspeople dedicated to their art form.

 

The final stage in the life of the model of a label is its passage though the validating office, where a whole spectrum of verification takes place. Then follows the paper setting as well as the making of a film image and, at last, the final proof, ready for the printing press.

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