From Barrel to Darkroom

Every winery has history, but not every winery has a darkroom. To celebrate their rich legacy, Ontario’s #1 winery (National Wine Awards, 2024), Henry of Pelham, converted their underground barrel cellar into a fully functional darkroom where wine lovers could put on a set of aprons and gloves and develop their own photos using Henry of Pelham wine, thanks to a method called Wineol.

Using that same process, Henry of Pelham created Develop Through Time, a limited-edition set of 50 handcrafted bottles featuring photographic labels developed with their own Sauvignon Blanc, Rosé, and Baco Noir wines. Each bottle features a unique artifact and chapter of the winery’s history, preserving a moment, a memory, or a misstep that helped shape the 200-year-old winery. It’s a legacy you don’t just taste, but experience.

Designed by Toronto-based creative company Zulu Alpha Kilo, each label was approached the same way Henry of Pelham treats wine: with care, craft, and a little bit of obsession. Four paper layers with four different stocks (cotton, vellum, toothy, and soft touch) give each bottle a tactile experience you can feel, not just look at. To reinforce the winery’s archival and historical nature, the designs incorporated classic techniques like debossing, stitch binding, thermography, and etched glass. Every bottle was then individually dipped in molten wax, one by one, with label pages meticulously bound together, by hand, into a folder and secured with twine. No shortcuts. Just a lot of hands-on work, like the wine itself.

Together, the 50 unique bottles form an archive documenting the legacy of a world-class winery—think of it like a Wikipedia page you can actually drink. ‘Developed Through Time’ showcases the winery’s untold story, more than proving that if you’re overlooking Ontario wine, you’re missing out on a world-class experience.