Bottle weight

There’s a good article on the Tablas Creek blog today about the positive impact made by their switch to lighter bottles. It’s resulted in cost savings, less use of glass, and customers favor it.

I agree, what is the point of needlessly heavy bottles? Champagne I can understand because of the carbonation. But as much as I like Bedrock wines, I wonder why do their bottles need to be so heavy. And in the case of wineries that make oversize bottles, what is the point? All it does is take up more space and make them hard to fit in racks. I don’t think bottle weight correlates to wine quality.

Here’s the link to the blog if you want to read their article:

We need more bottle shaming.

Turley immediately comes to mind. Love the wine, despise the bottles.

Here we go again.

I think Morgan has addressed this in the past - given the price point of a lot his wines, it helps to have a nice big bottle for market perception. It’s an unfortunate reality that you have to deal with - I’ve heard other winemarkers say the same thing with respect to screw caps - can’t sell a $50 wine with a screw cap, regardless of quality. Perhaps in the future then can do a screw cap plastic bottle for us in the know, and something that doubles as a bludgeon for the simpletons in the retail/restaurant market.

Everyone is going to agree with you here, myself included. Yet packaging and appearance do matter in the sale of retail products, and consumers are not purely rational about it.

Suppose you modestly supported yourself and your family by operating a winery, and your wines sold materially better in larger bottles and with a cute animal on the label. Would you do it? That’s probably closer to the real question.

[And I’m not saying for sure that would be the case. It probably depends a lot on the wine and its customer base. But supposed it were the case . . .]

I’d be happy if all wine bottles were the size of those used by Dirty and Rowdy. Easy to handle and they fit in any wine fridge slot.

Although I’ve not declined to purchase any particular wine based on bottle size, I love the bottles that fit in the standard racks in my Vinotemp. Those that don’t fit end up in cardboard boxes in my offsite locker and are often a pain in the butt to access/retrieve.

I’m a bit surprised at the references to Bedrock, as I don’t consider them to be a heavy bottle. I have a few bottles of the 2008 Syrahs remaining, which are in wider bottles, but I believe releases after that all fit in standard racks. I don’t have an empty bottle to compare, but just pulled a bottle of a 2011 Bedrock Syrah and it seemed no heavier than any other bottle of its type in my VT.

Cheers!

Steve

I guess the good folks at Ch Lafita (for example) don’t know marketing?

Personally I take oversized or overweight bottles as a warning of the marketing being higher priority than the wine making. An upscale version of critter labels.

Agreed.

Lafite may be a little different as there is a lot of marketing behind brand Bordeaux.

In any event, do customers prowl wine stores looking for heavy bottles?

Label design and color can be more effective.

Once you’ve made the commitment to big bottles and you’ve built a brand, it’s too late. But if you start out by building your brand using other methods . . .

Dupe

There are also plenty of traditional and prestigious producers in Burgundy and Champagne who use oversized bottles (in the case of Champagne, I mean substantially oversized or overly wide compared to what is reasonably necessary for Champagne). It’s not only the Belle Glos and Alto Moncayo type stuff.

I think we all agree that (1) we aren’t more impressed with large bottles, (2) we prefer bottles that fit in standard racks, and (3) we care about what’s inside the bottle. That’s easy, and we all know it’s what we’re supposed to say.

But I have to stop short of maligning people and companies that do what they think best to sell their products. Marketing and packaging do often matter in the sale of retail products, whether we think they should or not.

I hate oversized bottles as much as everyone else, but this isn’t the target community for marketing.

True, people in this forum overall would know wines a lot better than the average consumer and wouldn’t be swayed by the type of bottle. But less knowledgeable ones who are looking for something “special” might be influenced by a heavier or larger bottle. Or a bottle with a raised emblem (like Tablas Creek) or a wax capsule.

And those purchasing a wax capsule bottle as a gift could care less about the consternation the recipient will have when trying to open it.

This.

There is no doubt that ‘perception’ comes into play here. Would The Prisoner sell as well if it were in a lighter claret bottle? My guess is no . . .

Kudos to Tablas for their efforts and for leading the pack - as usual . . .

Cheers.

Though many may not specifically seek heavy bottles, when they pick one up, consciously or subconsciously, bottle weight sends a message to them- for some, it equals “more” and more = better, and for others heavy weight equals “luxury” and luxury = raised status.

I don’t think it is too late for anyone to make a change, like the info in the Tablas link, they made a significant change to their packaging (cutting their weight almost in 1/2 on their top tier wine). I not only applaud them for doing it, but for calculating the data from the last 10yrs, and using that positive impact to forward their brand.

We have used a light (470-490gr), domestically produced bottle since day 1. It was in large part an environmental choice, but I’d be fooling myself if it wasn’t also a major marketing decision-- as is every decision to do with packaging. Bottle weight / size may not matter to everyone, but to those it matters to, we want it to be noticed (like Steve mentioned above).

Even if that is the case, what % of the domestic wines purchased by or sought out by people on the forum come in a heavier type of bottle? >50%? >75%? >90%?

This is the reason I don’t buy Turley.

Everybody knows that it isn’t the bottle weight/size or screw top/ cork.

It’s the label that sells wine.

Wineries should consider customer retention in their decision process. The bigger is better thing might work for awhile, but if the model to to sell a large portion to regular customers, we’ve seen what happens in these threads. It gets old once you have a ton of these things to contend with in your cellar. It’s often the tie breaker when people are trimming their purchasing, because of that. People also comment they buy less from these producers, like go for the “essentials”, but are less likely to order other stuff.

We’ve seen a number of producers switch to lighter glass over the years. It makes sense, with the right timing, switching would be the right business decision. You landed the customers with the shrimp dick compensation image stuff, they’ve amassed enough that the inconveniences are adding up, then you market the switch as being green and all that, and they feel good about the green, and notice how easy to handle and store the bottles are and unthinkingly appreciate it.

Are you sure? Lots of SQN and PYCM buyers here.

After heavy bottles lets get rid of corks too! (Just had a corked ‘01 Harlan!)