Asimov on Wine Bottles

Good article. I think some standardization would help recycling efforts.

Mods - I didn’t see this posted previously, but if I missed it, and there’s already a thread, feel free to merge/delete.

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I often feel guilty about the impact of buying a lot of French wine that has to be bottled and shipped from Europe.

Especially when you think how there is plenty of wine that I could source more locally, say Santa Barbara.

When my wife gleefully showed me this article, I seriously pondered ceasing all my purchases of European wine. Then the feeling passed. blush

I know it’s not good, but it’s so hard to change.

Incremental steps … buy an electric car, eat red meat only twice a week, buy less wine because the truth is I DO have enough wine to last me 15 years.

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Jancis Robinson has been harping on bottle weight and transport for a very long time.

And apparently, she reports that Rosemary Cakebread tried getting lighter bottles but found that most bottles for US wines (not Gallo who have their own factory) are made in China. So, they travel the Pacific empty, before traveling elsewhere full. That means it’s likely that European wine has a smaller carbon footprint for those of us on the East Coast, than West Coast wine, even before counting their weight. In your case, bottle weight might make a difference in the carbon-footprint calculation.

Since it’s Saturday (and I have covid so I can’t do much) I thought I’d go the extra mile and weigh some bottles I have on hand (few marquee bottles because most are off site).

Keep in mind: Lightweight < 390g; Mid-weight <500g; Heavyweight 500g+ (she reports some go over a kg)

  • for at least keeping it within the mid-range
    -----> subtracting 750g (because that’s more or less what the wine weighs)

Bordeaux style bottle:
Bedrock single vineyard zins - 1578g -----> 828g (this is egregious)
Stereophonic (Sangiovese) - 1457g -----> 707g
Bedrock OVZ - 1449g -----> 699g
Carlisle (Syrah) - 1420g (Syrah) -----> 670g
Carlisle (SV Zin) - 1405g -----> 655g
Kayra (Turkey) - 1335g -----> 585g
Ridge Geyserville - 1323g -----> 573g (from feel I expected lighter)
Arietta Quartet - 1297g -----> 547g
*Bedrock Sonoma Cabernet - 1229g -----> 479g
*Bedrock Ode to Lulu - 1213g -----> 463g

Burgundy-style bottle (apparently industry can make these lighter than Bdx style bottles):
Goodfellow PN - 1447g -----> 697g
Mount Eden PN- 1423g -----> 673g
Mouklos (Greece) - 1415g -----> 665g
Ramey PN - 1359g -----> 609g
Charles Audoin - 1297g -----> 547g
Ser Cinsault - 1263g -----> 513g
*Kelley Fox (Nerthus Rose, no PN handy) - 1208g -----> 458g

Barolo-style:
Kirkland - 1337g -----> 587g (seriously?) (*note that none of my higher-end Barolos are here so they might be heavier)
Aldo Conterno Nebbiolo - 1329g -----> 579g
Vajra (Albe) - 1324g -----> 574g
Luigi Einaudi - 1305g -----> 555g

Mosel Riesling:
Gunther Steinmetz - 1293g -----> 543g
*Selbach-Oster - 1244g -----> 494g

Champagnes: (Light-weight<480g; standard 835g-900g)
Laurent-Perrier’s Grand Siecle - 1680g -----> 930g
Special Club (all producers) - 1664g -----> 914g
*Cailles Lemaire Champagne - 1619g -----> 869g
*Marie Courtin - 1613g -----> 863g

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And here we were, fretting about styrofoam shippers, when the real ecological problem is the bottles inside.

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I think that styrofoam is still a much greater problem.

For transport across water, weight is a minor issue. Same for rail. The problem for me with heavy bottles is shlepping them up and down stairs. I love lighter bottles.

I was going to say that maybe someone should invest in a solar-powerd glass and bottle manufacturing plant along I-80 in Nevada or Utah, but I dont think pricing could compete with China.

I was surprised to read that many bottles are made in China. Early on in Covid, I’d read that a high proportion came from Italy, where Covid hit particularly hard. Many others came from France. I thought it was that and the backup in the shipping industry that caused the shortage, not problems in China.

I think your info is for European wines. I’m sure China is in the mix there, these days, but no idea to what degree. In California it’s nearly all China, with Mexico a distant second.

I saw some article on my phone’s feed recently about some people pushing for re-useable wine bottles in the U.S. (First page of search results showed several other articles over the last year and a half, but not the one I read.) That is something done in Europe and other places, to some degree. Nothing new with beer and soda.

One idea is to start with restaurants. So, they’d keep empties of a type and the distributor would pick up full cases when making a delivery. Bars currently do that with Budweiser and Coors. (You might notice bar bottles are different and often scuffed.) Starting on a smaller scale, this could be a specific winery working with local restaurants. In some ways similar to a keg program.

A big point in the article is only about 30% of wine bottles placed in recycling bins are recycled, with the rest going to landfill.

Other points in the article are experimenting with label glues to ensure they come off easily with hot water. Another was working to change California law to make re-using wine bottles legal. Of course there’s making every aspect of the process as efficient as possible.

This is something I’ve been thinking on and frankly, limited glass availability has a lot to do with the bottle weight of recent Stereophonic releases. On top of the other impacts, it adds up at every stage of the shipping process for us, so I’m motivated to find lighter solutions! Also, I’ve never been particularly impressed by fancy heavy glass as a consumer, so it’s not a goal of mine as a producer. To be updated!

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I am a consumer/drinker/collector. My views (feelings) are the following. I really like Eric and Jancis and they certainly make a great points. However, as a consumer I like my bottles, I like my corks, simply put I like premium packaging. Heavy bottles don’t annoy me (oversize do because they mess up my racking) and honestly, I see this issue as more of a producer problem. When i go down to the cellar --I like seeing the shinning glass with the light reflecting off of it…simply put, it is part of what I am paying for. I understand it is not efficient, and for that I pay more, so what…it is a premium product. I would like to say-“i dont care about packaging”…that would be a lie. I think this is a total red herring for the industry. BUT, I may be a focus group of one with an empty glass!

Curious about your thoughts on glass as a red herring.

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My view, again focus group of one (and “my own” friends who have cellars), the amount of time we spend talking/complaining about glass or bottles is zero. More conversation/focus (outside of what we think about the tasting) would be labeling and transparency of wine making practices. Again, in my view, new entrants into “the world of wine” are not sitting around thinking about glass. Finally, I am not suggesting it is not an “issue”— but I do not believe from an industry perspective this is game changing or something that brings or keeps consumers interesting in wine. Thus red herring. Make sense?

I’m not Hardy but don’t think it makes sense. I’ll explain.

First, in your prior post you conceded the very important point of oversized bottles. Heavier bottles are, almost of necessity, oversized. Since the inside of the bottle has to hold the same amount of liquid, the only other way, besides making it bigger, to make a glass bottle heavier that I’m aware of (and I’m no expert) is to add lead. Hopefully nobody’s doing that to wine bottles. So if oversized bottles bother you for space reasons (as they do most of us along with the environmental concerns), then you’re already on the side of wanting lighter bottles.

Second, when I grabbed that bottle of Bedrock Esola to weigh it, it really came across as a monstrosity. So the problem goes beyond storage and the environment. It also carries an irrational expectation of heaviness in the wine itself (which I know is not the case with Esola when compared other Bedrock zins for example). Pouring an ethereal wine from a heavy bottle seems wrong. And when one does, it detracts from the experience. How premium can a packaging be when it makes the product come across as worse instead of better?

Third, most consumers, even consumers of very good wine, simply can’t say “so what” to higher prices as you do. It’s great for you that you can. I certainly wish I could.

Finally, as to glass itself, I think most concede that wine meant for aging (the premium product you allude to) will need to do so in glass unless and until we figure out a better material for the wine. So your excursions to see glinting glass in your cellar are safe.

I do agree with you that transparency and labeling are important concerns too.

Isn’t the detail above on labeling transparency a red herring (or was that the point?) [scratch.gif]

Asimov shines light on the issue so that consumers know the impact, discuss (we’ve got a thread going) and perhaps some will care, make buying decisions, etc. Whether or not it is seen as an issue, discussed, or keeps consumers interested in wine, it ultimately falls on the producer to make change and lessen impact where they know they can.

Not here to argue…like I said I really don’t care about bottles as a consumer (others might good for them/you). My point again and very succinctly is-- AS A CONSUMER, I really don’t care AND I like my glass bottles. It never comes up with other consumers/drinkers I associate with… YET it come up all the time now in the wine press. That means by default there is a disconnect between what I care about (focus group of one) and what the wine press spends time on. That is my point----it is that simple.

Kegs are better still, at least in producing areas like California.