Quality Standard

Board and Paper Standard

We start with greyboard at 1200 g minimum. For spirits, we recommend 1400 g. That's heavier than what you'll find on most off-the-shelf bags, and it's the difference between a bag that holds its shape and one that folds at the first bottle. We don't use recycled greyboard. It's softer, it warps, and it fails at the crease. If a supplier quotes you a price that seems too good, ask what board they're putting inside.

Facing paper is 157 g minimum, specialty or coated. Kraft, white card, gold or silver cardboard, flocked, leather-textured. The facing does the visual work, but the board underneath does the structural work. High-moisture paper is out. It wrinkles during lamination and peels at the edges. You won't see it on day one. You'll see it on the shelf. And once the facing peels, the bag is done. No one reuses a bag that looks like it's shedding.

Here's a failure mode we see often: a buyer sends a photo of a competitor's bag, asks for the same look, but doesn't specify the board. We quote with 1200 g greyboard, the competitor quotes with something lighter. The bags look identical in photos. In hand, one feels like a gift, the other feels like a grocery bag. You can't fix that with better printing. The board is the bag.

Insert and Bottle Fit

The insert rule is simple: the bottle is held at four points. No unsupported neck, no unsupported shoulder. That's where breakage happens. We check it three ways. Shake the box for ten seconds, no movement. Tilt it 45 degrees, no slide. Invert it, no release. If the bottle moves in any of those, the insert is wrong and we fix it before production.

A velvet tray, EVA foam, blister, or paper mould. Each has a different feel. Velvet reads premium, EVA reads protective, paper mould reads sustainable. But all of them have to hold the bottle the same way. Four points, no movement. That's non-negotiable.

Let me be blunt about one thing: an unsupported neck is the most common insert failure we see. The bottle looks fine in the box, but the neck is floating. One drop, one rough courier, and the neck snaps. We don't ship that. Not even for a prototype. The four-point rule isn't a suggestion. It's the difference between a gift and a claim.

Tolerances and Color Control

Our control tolerance is plus or minus 1 mm on inserts, plus or minus 2 mm on the box body. That sounds tight, but it's what keeps a magnetic closure from popping open and a drawer from sticking. On foldable boxes, the creases must not crack, the magnet position is plus or minus 1 mm, and the corners are 90 degrees when erected. If a corner is off, the whole box looks drunk.

Color is matched to Pantone. We do first-article approval and mid-run sampling. Black, deep blue, and burgundy are the hardest to hold. They show every variation in ink density. If your brand color is one of those, plan for an extra round of proofing. Don't sign off on a photo. Sign off on a physical sample.

One more thing on tolerance: we measure every insert against a master gauge, not against the box. If the insert is 1 mm too big, it won't seat. If it's 1 mm too small, the bottle rattles. Both are failures. And on foldable boxes, we check the crease with a fold-and-unfold cycle. If the crease cracks, the box is scrap. You can't see that in a photo either.

In-House Pre-Shipment Checks

Before anything ships, we run our in-house checks. A 1.2 m six-face drop test with the bottle loaded. Stacking top load of 40 kg or more for 24 hours. Truck and sea vibration simulation. No internal movement. These are not third-party tests. They're our checks, done on our floor, with your bottle inside.

If a check fails, the order doesn't ship. We rework or we redo. That's the only way to keep a wine bag from arriving with a torn handle or a crushed corner. You can't inspect quality in at the end. You have to build it in at the board, the insert, and the crease.

Here's what a failed drop test looks like: the bottle is fine, but the bag's handle tears at the stitch line. Or the box corner crushes, and the magnetic closure pops open. We don't argue about whether it's acceptable. It's not. We fix the handle reinforcement or the corner construction, and we test again. That's why we do this before shipping, not after your customer calls.

Questions buyers ask