Think of the bottling crews having 8 hour days of lugging around cases that weigh 10 or more lbs. above average. That’s a huge amount of extra work. That’s the sort of stress that leads to quitting.
From the insider perspective, I see a strong correlation with hands-off wine making. Out of touch with, or indifferent to, the people doing the work. That’s custom crush labels and snooty douchebag labels. The former are just trying to project an image and aren’t really aware of the details. I suggested to one custom crush winemaker that he charge a $10/case premium for the workers for having to deal with those tediously heavy bottles. Response: “That’s fair.” Not sure what he actually said or did, but they did switch to lighter bottles.
Consider that what we have today - 3 bottle shapes and standardized volume - was a break from tradition.
A lot of CA Syrah goes into Bdx bottles. Petite Sirah seems pretty evenly split. I’ve seen an occasional PN in Bdx, including a recently acquired '83, but that’s rare. Martin Ray used to bottle everything, including his Cabs, in Champagne bottles. After the deep state regulator thugs ruled that was deceptive advertising, he switched to Burg bottles. Early David Bruce Zins were in Burg bottles. A lot of Bordeaux into the '70s were in another style glass. There’s still some oddball glass here and there.
I like the variation of bottle shape both by tradition and style, and a homogenous bottle shape isn’t something I’d like to see in fine wine. I do agree that the ultra-heavy bottle weights are out of touch for a number of reasons.
I love that my attempt at introducing a bit of humor led to a much more important discussion abut the actual subject of bottle size, weight and shape.
To that point, one of our local wineries and from a dear friend, Jim Clendenen of Au Bon Climat, is notorious for using HEAVY dark glass for their higher end Pinots such as Cuvee Isabelle and Know Alexander, both consistently stellar wines IMHO. When you get down to the bottom, it’s nearly impossible to tell how much wine is remaining. It’s still so heavy and you can’t see through the glass unless you have a super bright light on the other side.
One time, I used an empty bottle of ABC Isabelle to pour a weak sister Pinot into it for a blind tasting with my group. While pouring the first flight of 6, the group member who poured it with a brown bag over it could not tell how much wine was in the bottle and over poured the first few glasses and had to go back and re-pour all 12 places. The heavy bottle use by ABC was known to a few and the subjective aspect took over and it got called an ABC before we revealed it by some of those who felt it. The wine was no way near ABC style or quality. I didn’t`t apologize and we had another lesson learned from a blind format.
I don’t know about temperature variation as being a reason that some winemakers use heavier bottles/thicker glass. I think the total mass of the liquid is more likely to be stabilizing. One Napa winemaker told me that he favored thicker glass because it cut down on light penetration. Most of us keep our wines away from light anyway, so I don’t buy that reason. I think it is a marketing ploy…heavier must be better.
I also think thicker bottles tend to be more of a marketing ploy than anything else. My comments were merely out of curiosity, I wasn’t suggestion that’s the reason winemakers use them. And truthfully, likely any benefit gained from heavier bottles is greatly overshadowed by its larger environmental impact and inconveniences.
But bottle thickness definitely affects the rate a wine changes temperature. Glass is a thermal insulator and the thicker it is, the more it is effective. Think of how quickly a wine chills or warms up in a decanters with thinner walls vs. its bottle.
A bottle that weighs 30-40% more likely has walls that are only about 10% thicker, at most. There is extra mass because the circumference is bigger, then scales like the cube root of the weight ratio.
Refraction properties dwarf thickness. Dark doesn’t matter much if there isn’t refraction, either.
My friends at Stefania went through this two decades ago when working through what was important for quality and cost to present their reasonably priced quality wines. They found good brown glass with great refraction, not brittle, quite light, and happened to be on the low end of the price spectrum. No capsules, since they’re stupid and pricey. Expensive corks because quality is crucial there and nothing that costed less was good enough.
I know a number of winemakers who have reduced the size and weight of their bottles over the past 20 years, some with feedback for customers and others just on their own.
Just carried a case shipper of Champagne 40 yards, but it’s forgivable with bubbles.
My cellar is downstairs and I hate lugging cases down there. (In our planned new build I’m putting in an elevator to help). The lighter bottles are appreciated. I haven’t noticed that wine drinks any differently from a lighter weight bottle.
I wish all wineries would make that switch.
Cheers.
Happy New Year
Whether you are putting in an elevator or a dumbwaiter–which is what we have–check with local officials first. In our case we discovered too late that the safety rules meant that the device became more bother than it’s worth. For example, in our home the kitchen is on the top floor, sleeping quarters in the middle and the garage at the bottom. They fear that little children will want to use the dumbwaiter a a ride so they make access very difficult. That makes use very difficult. $10,000 down the drain.
