Alcohol labels have less room for creative error than most packaging. Wine, beer, cider, spirits and RTDs sold in New Zealand need the normal packaged food basics plus alcohol-specific declarations. The artwork needs to make those declarations legible before the design goes to proof, foil, embossing or die-cut.
This guide covers the checks we run into most often at prepress. It is general guidance, not legal advice.
What must be on a wine or alcohol label
For most packaged alcoholic drinks sold in New Zealand, allow space for:
- Product name. Clear description of what the drink is.
- Alcohol content. Over 1.15% ABV, state the alcohol content. More in alcohol content below.
- Standard drinks. Any drink over 0.5% ABV needs a standard drinks statement.
- Pregnancy warning label. Required now on drinks over 1.15% ABV. More in pregnancy warning labels below.
- Net contents. Bottle, can or pack volume.
- Lot or batch identification. Traceability for recall and quality control.
- Supplier details. Business name and physical address in NZ or Australia. A PO Box, website or email on its own won’t do.
- Allergen declarations. If you added sulphites and they’re at 10 mg/kg or more, declare them: ‘Contains sulphites’. More in allergens and sulphites below.
- Country of origin. Required for grape wine. If any grapes, juice or wine came from another country, name that country too. Not legally required on beer, cider, spirits or RTDs in NZ. If you do state an origin, it has to be true.
- Vintage, variety and region. For NZ grape wine, name a vintage, variety or region only if at least 85% of the wine comes from it. Blends: list them largest share first. Imported wine: 75% rule for variety only. Don’t name a variety, vintage or area if more of the wine comes from one you haven’t named.
- Best-before date. If the shelf life is under 2 years, the label also needs a best-before date.
Alcohol content and standard drinks
From 0.5% to 1.15% ABV, state “Contains not more than X% alcohol by volume”. Over 1.15%, state the alcohol content in mL/100 mL, mL/100 g or % alc/vol (wine may use “%vol”). Your stated ABV must be within ±0.3% (beer/cider), ±0.5% (spirits/RTD) or ±1.5% (wine) of the real figure.
The standard drinks statement is separate. Any drink over 0.5% ABV needs a standard drinks statement. It tells the customer how many standard drinks are in the container, worked out from alcohol content and package volume, so a new bottle size or ABV can change the number. State approx. standard drinks, e.g. ‘Contains approx. 1.1 standard drinks’. Round to 1 decimal place up to 10, and to a whole number above 10 (a 3 L cask at 12% is “approx. 28”, not 28.4). You can work it out with our standard drinks calculator.
For a wine brand, this matters at artwork version control. If the vintage comes in at a different ABV, the front or back label may need updating before the repeat run.
Pregnancy warning labels
Any drink over 1.15% ABV sold at retail must carry the FSANZ pregnancy warning label. It has been mandatory since 31 July 2023. That covers any such drink packaged and labelled from 1 August 2023, for retail sale.
FSANZ sets the design, size, contrast and legibility, so treat the label as a mandatory artwork element, not a decorative icon you can resize freely. Print it at or above the minimum size for your container, on white, with 3 mm clear space. Don’t recolour, crop or redraw it. Type 5 is for corrugated shipper cartons: flexo-printed corrugated outers, pictogram 14 mm, all black.
For small back labels, the pregnancy warning can be the element that forces a layout rethink. Put it into the compliance copy early, before finalising barcode, allergen, producer story and export copy.
Allergens and sulphites
If you added sulphites and they’re at 10 mg/kg or more, declare them: ‘Contains sulphites’.
Fining agents count too. Declare egg, milk or any other allergen used as a fining agent, even if it’s filtered out. Exempt: isinglass in beer or wine, gluten cereals in beer or spirits, and spirits distilled from wheat or whey.
The safest workflow is to supply the final ingredient and processing-aid information with the artwork brief. We can flag obvious layout issues, but the brand needs to confirm the product formulation and allergen position.
Energy labelling
From 13 August 2028, drinks of 0.5% ABV or more need an ENERGY INFORMATION panel: kJ per serve and per 100 mL, with standard drinks per serve. Skip it if you already have a nutrition panel or the label is under 100 cm². Plan for it on repeat artwork now.
Claims that cause trouble
Drinks above 1.15% ABV have two limits on claims. No health claims. The only nutrition claims allowed are about energy, carbohydrate, sugar(s) or gluten content.
Over 1.15% can’t be called ‘low alcohol’; over 0.5% can’t say ‘non-intoxicating’. Claims like organic, natural, vegan, preservative-free, gluten-free or regional origin need evidence and the right wording.
Wine origin, grape variety and vintage claims also need to line up with the rules for New Zealand grape wine label statements and any export market requirements. If the label is heading offshore, check the destination market before printing.
What we check before proofing
Our prepress review is practical. We look for the common issues that turn into expensive reprints:
- missing standard drinks or ABV
- pregnancy warning label not present or not legible
- allergen copy missing or too small
- barcode and quiet zones compromised by die-cut or artwork
- mandatory copy placed over foil, varnish or low-contrast backgrounds
- vintage, ABV or volume mismatches between front, back and carton artwork
- copy sitting too close to the cut line
We are not a regulatory consultant. Where the question is legal rather than print practical, we will flag it and point you back to MPI, FSANZ or your adviser.
Useful official sources
Before you send wine label artwork
Check the wine label sizes first, then send the label size, bottle volume, ABV, vintage, variety, region, supplier details, barcode, allergen position and export destination if there is one. If the wine is a repeat, tell us whether the ABV, vintage, standard drinks or supplier copy changed since the last run.
That lets us catch print and layout issues before the proof goes out, not after the stock is on press.
Rules last checked against Food Standards Code, MPI guide to alcoholic drinks, FSANZ pregnancy warning labels and others on 13 October 2026.