Visconti - Bordeaux

Visconti - Bordeaux - Ink Drop

This is Visconti Bordeaux. This is my first sip of an ink from Visconti, and I have to say, it’s been quite delicious! Visconti offers a very limited range of inks, and none of the colors are particularly adventurous, so I overlooked the brand for a long time. Bordeaux finally caught my eye, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know it. For a brand not known to be very budget-friendly, their inks are quite nicely priced.

The older, plastic “vase” bottles are attractive, but they’re known to be unstable in use. The packaging acts as a platform for the bottle, and that helps, but they’d be much nicer in glass. They’ve changed design to a modern, square, glass bottles, so tipping is no longer an issue.

Visconti - Bordeaux - Color Range

Visually, Bordeaux is a very attractive, rich, dark, crimson, or cardinal red. To be honest, this is a color category ripe with great options, and I wasn’t expecting much. Bordeaux is a beautifully pure red, however, more red than red wine, and it quickly won me over. There’s nice shading which adds interest and movement, and it shows off the color well. It also has a sharp, dark halo, which gives strokes great definition and confidence. This is a good-looking ink!

Visconti - Bordeaux - Ink Swatch Card

As a writing ink, Bordeaux is nice and wet, with comfortable, smooth flow. It feels great on paper, and it glides across the page like skates on ice. Strokes were clean and sharp on all six test papers. Shading was visible on all, as well. There was no halo on office copy, but it was moderate to strong on the others. Drying time is probably the only weakness here, but it isn’t much of a problem. Coated premiums dried in 20-35 seconds, uncoated premiums in 20-25 seconds, and office copy took 5 seconds.

Visconti Bordeaux is a very nice writing ink, and it looks great, too! The writing experience more than makes up for the slightly longer than average drying time. This might not be my favorite dark red, but it’s a very good ink, much better than many in the category. If you’re interested, or looking for something new, don’t hesitate.