![]() Technically glass has a liquid (amorphous) structure, lacking the characteristic crystalline structure of a solid. The cork/glass bottle combination created fine wine as we know it today: bottles that can be cellared, in some cases for many years. Then, someone else would have realised that if a cork were inserted more fully into the neck, it created a seal that excluded oxygen and allowed the wine to develop in the bottle. The first glass bottles would have been used to transport wine from the container to the table, and then would have been re-used.Īt some stage, someone had the bright idea of sticking tree bark in the neck of a bottle: cork became widely used as a stopper. Then, once it got to market, the wine would need to be consumed fairly young – the young wine was fresh and had desirable flavours, whereas most older wines would have deteriorated in contact with the air. They are inert, stable and able to keep wine in good condition for 100 years or more.īack in the day, all wine that needed to move to market would have been transported in bulk: either in amphorae in the ancient world, or in skins, or in barrels, once these became widely adopted. Wine wouldn’t be what it is today, were it not for the physical properties of glass bottles. We need a call to action to get producers, retailers and the glass industry to work together to lighten heavier bottles across the whole market.Glass is remarkable, yet we tend to take it for granted. ‘We know we have a problem with CO2 emissions and we are addressing it. Adeline Farrelly of FEVE (the European Container Glass Federation) stresses that wine bottles are 30% lighter than they were 20 years ago and says further lightweighting can be achieved by working hand in hand with the wine industry. ![]() The glass industry also has a crucial role to play. ‘If retailers – for example, UK supermarkets – really get behind this, the message could come through into consumer consciousness quickly.’ UK supermarket Waitrose, which markets itself as a champion of sustainability, says it is ‘making moves to introduce lighter glass bottles’, citing its new, lighter Boschendal Chardonnay bottle, and ‘flagging bottle weights in its press tasting booklet’, but would share no further information. ‘They created the problem, so it falls on them to correct it.’ Halstead feels retailers are key. Melissa Saunders MW, who wrote her Master of Wine research paper on the environmental impact of wine packaging, believes change has to start with producers. We are listed in numerous top restaurants and have never had an order declined because of it.’ ![]() Nobody even noticed when we started bottling our more expensive wines in lighter glass. ‘The idea that there is a lot of consumer resistance is a myth. He doesn’t believe it would be hard to break the perceived link in consumer perceptions between bottle weight and quality. Nigel Greening of Felton Road, one of New Zealand’s leading producers, ships wines around the world at all quality levels in lightweight 416g bottles. ‘The challenge is to relaunch the Port in a much lighter bottle without losing its visual impact.’ Graham’s aged tawny Port, traditionally packaged in a squat 790g bottle with a deep punt, is one of the company’s most successful brands. And it’s basically doable.’ He acknowledges that change can take time. Symington sees bottle weight as a hotspot for the wine industry: ‘Producers will not get anywhere near their carbon reduction targets without addressing bottle weight. ‘It’s not just about carbon emissions it’s cheaper to use lighter bottles.’ ‘There is a lot of positive pressure coming through the supply chain at the moment,’ says Rob Symington of Portugal’s Symington Family Estates, which has cut the weight of most of its Port bottles to 450g. September releases 2022: full score tableĪccording to Halstead, 2022 could be the year the wine industry starts making a serious effort to adopt lightweight glass bottles: ‘Reducing glass bottle weight saves costs and is a tangible way of demonstrating greater sustainability, because it’s easy to measure the reduction in CO2,’ she says.įaced with rising energy prices and inflation, ‘lightweighting’ increasingly makes economic sense. ![]() Rhône 2021 score table: top white wines.March releases on the Place de Bordeaux 2023.
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