How do wine stewards (Sommeliers) get the labels off of the bottle in fine eateries?
I’m no sommelier, and I’ve never been presented with the label off the bottle, but I do drink a fair amount of wine, and I like to keep the labels. A few months back I tried a bunch of different ways to get the labels off cleanly, and I found what’s worked well for me. What flat-out didn’t work was soaking the bottles in water (warm or otherwise). The labels got wet, but not especially loose. So don’t even bother with that. Before I get into my method, I’ll say that I haven’t tried any of the kits you can buy where you apply a big transparent film to the bottle and then peel it off, taking the label with it. They sound tricky to me, not to mention more expensive than what I do, which costs nothing. In my experience, there are two kinds of glue used for wine labels; let’s call them Type A and Type B (I’m not a glue expert). Type A is much more common, and I’ve found it on bottles from large and small wineries both local (USA) and imported (Australia, South America, South Africa). Type B
