Bottle Heft- Do you care?

[JDavisRoby]

Mentioned I had a tasting of the Ancient Peak line tonight. Their Oyster Ridge bottle is massive and heavy for a $50-60 bottle. It was nuts.

[J_a_y_H_a_c_k]

I think big fat bottles are a huge waste of resources and should be outlawed as providing no socially useful benefit. I think all wine should come in a standard light Bordeaux bottle except champagne, which probably needs a heavier bottle to withstand the extra pressure. Frankly, the size and weight of the bottle has no bearing on my belief as to the size or weight of the winemaker’s or winery owner’s penis. Sorry to be crude, but overweight bottles really annoy me.

Years ago I tried to get people to weigh their empty bottles and post weights so we could create public shaming and I tried to organize a Pax boycott because of the absurd bottle size. They switched to lighter bottles. Maybe someone can unearth the old thread, but it might be on e-Bob.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

I stopped buying Turley because of their obnoxious bottles.

[Wes_Barton]

I think big fat bottles are a huge waste of resources and should be outlawed as providing no socially useful benefit. I think all wine should come in a standard light Bordeaux bottle except champagne, which probably needs a heavier bottle to withstand the extra pressure. Frankly, the size and weight of the bottle has no bearing on my belief as to the size or weight of the winemaker’s or winery owner’s penis. Sorry to be crude, but overweight bottles really annoy me.

Years ago I tried to get people to weigh their empty bottles and post weights so we could create public shaming and I tried to organize a Pax boycott because of the absurd bottle size. They switched to lighter bottles. Maybe someone can unearth the old thread, but it might be on e-Bob.

Martin Ray long used Champagne bottles for his still wines. That stopped when the Feds decided it was deceptive marketing (volume-wise). Of course, he’d done it to denote quality (and charged big bucks for his wines). So, there is a degree of precedent for the bureaucrats to use, that wouldn’t require a law, to keep the sizes reasonable.

My benchmark is friends who started a winery. Color of glass matters (brown protects against light strike, green is negligibly better than clear.) There’s some brittle glass to avoid, but basically you can get very high quality glass at about the lightest weight and near lowest cost. They decided capsules are stupid, so designed labels and branded corks that make an attractive package. And they decided cork quality of the highest level was crucial and worth paying for.

[Ken_Zinns]

As someone who does a lot of bottling, those larger bottles are brutal on the crews. I suggested to one winemaker he charge a $20/case premium for the over-sized bottles a couple of his clients insist on using to compensate the crew for the extra work. “Yeah, I should.” He’s at that point. It’s gotten old. It’s harder to recruit workers for heavy bottle days. Those are about 10 lbs. heavier. If you go the full 17.5 lbs heavier, you should pay at least double that. (In the same way, a couple of the local mobile bottlers have upgraded to faster lines. The winemakers responded by paying a much higher wage, so the labor cost per case is closer to what i had been.)

I wasn’t going to mention this, but since you already did… It really is a lot tougher on every person who helps with bottling to work with those heavy bottles, particularly on faster bottling lines. When I can, I definitely avoid working on days when I know there will be a lot of heavy glass involved - I’ve already screwed up one of my elbows because of that stuff. Not worth being paid a few bucks an hour more for that. It may not be much of a concern to most of the people on this board, but bottling days with those ultra-heavy bottles can be brutal on wine workers.

[GregT]

I assume that some use the thicker bottles to help reduce temperature variation?

I like this angle too- makes sense the extra weight is added thermal mass.

Heat capacity of glass is about 20% of water. A bordeaux bottle weighs about 3lbs, the wine inside about 1.6lbs. So if you’re adding, e.g., 30% more in glass, you’ve increased the effective thermal mass by about 8%.

But frankly I doubt that any producer has ever considered this aspect when choosing a bottle.

And I agree with both of Alan’s posts. I seriously doubt any winemaker is going to think about thermal mass. Why should they? The bottle will spend time on a shelf, on a table, maybe in a cellar. Shipping is irrelevant for the most part.

Do only winemakers and wine-marketers obsess about bottle weight and look?

Mostly, but also the distributors. I had one complain to me about a wine because the winery used the cheapest glass bottle and customers were going to think the wine was cheap. Not knowing what to look for (sometimes a blessing) I asked what would make it appear cheap. A punt that isn’t very deep so the bottle isn’t tall, not having a high shoulder, lighter green glass, and a cheap label.

But they used a good cork. Seemed to have their priorities straight as far as I was concerned. I like the look of the Rhone bottles and the Tokaj bottles and even those Gattinara bottles, but wish all wine came in a simple Bordeaux bottle.

[Scott_G_r_u_n_e_r]

I assume that some use the thicker bottles to help reduce temperature variation?

I like this angle too- makes sense the extra weight is added thermal mass.

That is an interesting thought, though I’ve never ever ever heard it used as a justification for larger bottles. And I’m not sure how true that truly is . . .

Rationalization not underlying reason

[Chris_Seiber]

I’m with the chorus here, but let’s face it, people who like oversized bottles are not really going to admit it. Probably many of them don’t even realize it.

Marketing and advertising often work, but nobody is going to say “I admit, I choose my beer, car and insurance because of the ads.”

[Jim_Brennan]

To the original question:

1. If it involves a deathmatch, yes
2. If it can’t fit into my racking as a result, yes
3. Otherwise, no

[Jason_T]

I have always vastly preferred standard bottles that fit into standard racking. I amend that to include smaller bottle size as well, having just gone through moving my collection to offsite. I could tell when a producer used heavier bottles, and was annoyed when loading them into my locker because I could rarely get a full case of them into the same size space I could get standard bottles.

Also, as pointed out above, it’s wasteful and adds no real value, other than making lemmings feel better about their purchase.

[David_Glasser]

Strong preference here for standard bottles that fit into single-bottle racking. Don’t care about fancy shape, size, weight, color, etc. Wines I buy on release and cellar don’t need any extra light or heat protection. Backfills that have been poorly stored for years will suffer regardless of bottle thickness.

[Scott_G_r_u_n_e_r]

Have to add… if you ARE going to choose heavy bottles, only choose bordeaux style heavy bottles as they will still typically fit in most racking. Just please avoid tall ones that mess with double depth configurations etc

Burg/champagne heavy bottles are the worst offenders to practicality in the cellar

[Carlton_McCrindle]

Are heavier bottles less breakable than standard?

[Chuck_Miller]

I assume that some use the thicker bottles to help reduce temperature variation?

I like this angle too- makes sense the extra weight is added thermal mass.

Heat capacity of glass is about 20% of water. A bordeaux bottle weighs about 3lbs, the wine inside about 1.6lbs. So if you’re adding, e.g., 30% more in glass, you’ve increased the effective thermal mass by about 8%.

But frankly I doubt that any producer has ever considered this aspect when choosing a bottle.

I think your weights are off. I know nothing about how much a bottle v. the wine inside weighs, but a full case of stnd bdx btls weighs 38 lbs, or barely over 3 lbs, not 4.6 lbs.

[Alan_Rath]

Chuck, you’re right, a full bottle weighs about 3lbs. Which would put the bottle itself at about 1.4lbs. So a 50% increase in the glass gives about 8% increase in effective thermal mass. The conclusion is the same: it’s not enough of a factor to matter, even if a producer was paying attention to it.

[Ken_Zinns]

FWIW, I took a quick look at the website of one well-known supplier of wine bottles and found a few examples of weights in their different categories for Bordeaux-style glass:
Lightweight: 0.87 to 1.02 lb.
Traditional: 1.06 to 1.21 lb.
Premium: 1.29 to 1.54 lb.
Ultra Premium: 1.76 to 2.65 lb.

So there is a huge variation in the weight of these Bordeaux-style bottles, with the heaviest of the ones I happened to look at (only a few) being over three times the weight of the lightest. That translates to the weight of a full case (including the wine itself) ranging from around 30 lb. to 50 lb.

[Warren_Taranow]

I loathe thick bottles, big bottles, and while I’m at it, polystyrene packing (granted, I live in a temperate climate).

Grumpily yours,
Warren

[dsGriswold]

I find a few of the premium PN bottles are getting on the fat side, a reason to buy affordable wines. I need to cut back on buying anyway, so any excuse to pass is welcome. Fortunately most of my regular buys are not for the Ballers. I hear you Warren.

[K_John_Joseph]

I absolutely detest the super tall bottles and the super heavy thick glass bottles. The pain in the ass factor scales with bottle size and weight. If there is something darker in color that is only just heavier than standard BDX it should get the “nice packaging” nod while also being functional.

[Chris_Seiber]

Sea Smoke is an example of a winery who used to have fairly thick oversized pinot bottles, but pulled back to more medium sized pinot bottles maybe 8-10 years ago or so. I’m glad they did that.