A Bottle is as a Bottle Does

By Cameron Fries

There is a joke in the wine industry that a certain famous wine publication out of San Francisco does not bother to taste the wine anymore, they just weigh the bottle. The heavier the bottle, the more points are automatically awarded. After all, a fancy package that feels hefty in the hand must taste better then a package that weighs less.

Over the years I have made several packaging decisions for “green” reasons or for cost saving measures in order to pass these savings on to the consumer. Inevitably one gets caught up in perceptions that a package that does not fit the “norm” is not quite right. Unless, of course, the package is way out there; such as a blue bottle or bottles in the form of a fish. And in the last decade, the Australians have enjoyed having lots of fun with their labels which opened up the door for Americans to do the same.

When I worked in Switzerland, we actually used so-called hock bottles (the tall bottles that Riesling and Gewurztraminer often come in) for Chardonnay. When I was working at Worden’s Washington Winery in Spokane in 1984, we had a small batch of Chardonnay to bottle. There were some hock bottles piled in a corner and thinking nothing of it I bottled the Chardonnay up. Needless to say the market reacted negatively–the wine was put in the “wrong” bottle.

Years later, I was making a bone dry Riesling. In order to try and differentiate it from the plethora of sweet Rieslings made in the state, I bottled it in a so-called Burgundy bottle (the sloping shouldered bottle that Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, both Burgundian varieties, often come in). I had wholesale buyers telling me they could not buy the wine, because it was in the wrong bottle.

The point is that the shape of the bottle has no influence on the flavor of the wine. Different bottle shapes evolved in different regions of Europe so people could tell at a glance where a wine came from. At one marketing seminar, the presenter suggested that we should create a special bottle for Washington State. Naturally this would be difficult to implement, but imagine being able to tell if the wine was from Washington just by the bottle shape.

For my next bottle fiasco, I waited until 1992. At the time there was one bottle factory in the state, and they only made clear glass. This meant that although glass was being collected, all the colored glass was being ground up and used in asphalt. Only clear glass can be recycled in a clear glass factory. So, being a bit of a sagebrush hugger, I bottled all of our wines for two years in clear glass. Needless to say, this was most frowned upon by wholesale buyers. I had one reputable buyer in Ravenna inform me flat-out that their customers would not buy wine in a clear bottle. If I had been sufficiently quick-witted, I would have pointed out that not selling any Chateaux d’Yquem was a bit of revenue loss.

The point is that the color of the glass has no influence on the flavor of the wine. A colored bottle will protect wine from nefarious light. However, a bottle spending enough time under fluorescent light in the grocery store is far more likely to end up in the discount bin than be damaged on the shelf. And surely standing all those corked bottles upright isn’t exactly the best storage system either. And if you are cellaring your wine on a south-facing window sill, the aging process probably will not go well despite the pretty refracted light colors you will get on your walls and ceiling from colored bottles.

For many years I purchased the least expensive bottle possible in order to keep costs down. This entailed the purchase of light flat-bottom bottles. This of course makes the bottle shorter, although perhaps less elegant. In addition lighter bottles reduce the weight and thus shipping costs. This allowed us to maintain reasonable price points on our wines. My theory was that Americans will not become everyday wine drinkers until wine can be afforded every day. How did this backfire? When your wine is inexpensive and looks short people perceive your wine as cheap.

You already know the point, but I cannot help repeating myself, the shape of a bottle has no influence on the flavor of the wine. There is no winemaking reason for a bottle to have a push-up. It does not help in decanting if the wine has sediment. Flat bottomed bottles were more difficult to engineer, thus all bottles at one time had push-ups as it makes the bottle stronger.

Alas, dear reader, perhaps now you understand why I have become a curmudgeon, muttering in my beard. We now bottle all of our wines in the appropriately shaped bottle, in the appropriately colored bottle, with nice push-ups. I will admit that a push up makes for a handy place to put your thumb when pouring wine and stretching across a table.