Aren’t there plenty of producers from places like Burgundy and Spain who do it, too? I get the sense that we WBer types tend to give Old World producers a free pass when it comes to this.
There also is a wide middle ground between lighter bordeaux bottles and bottles
With punts the size of your fist. It’s also a bit melodramatic to suggest that folks might feel “cheated” by a lighter choice in bottles. More likely they will just grab a different bottle from their cellar when they go to a tasting with their friends and wine group. Or possibly pick a different wine off the restaurant list for important clients and their boss.
There are big heavy burg bottles and most definitely big heavy bordeaux bottles(see the weights above) as well. While I realize that two people here have issues racking my wines in their cellar, we use a medium weight bottle, with a normal sized punt.
Given that many of the greatest Grand Cru bottles I have consumed were out of very basic, lighter burgundy bottles, I am also 100% focused on what’s inside the bottle. Hence the frustration.
And bluntly, I did take my chances on the basic lighter burgundy bottle for 10 years. I also sold my wines at every level, wholesale, to distributors, and directly to consumers. I made my choices based upon direct feedback from each of those arenas.
The members of this forum are not average consumer(as has been noted about a billion times).
I give you a lot of credit for your candor, here. I know it would be easy for me to get on my high horse about the pointlessness of oversized bottles, but man, you’ve got a business to run and a family to feed. If you have to make some small accommodations to the realities of selling products in your field, I certainly can’t fault you for it.
Having said all of that, I am totally with the chorus here as far as preferring moderate sized bottles that fit in racks. Credit in particular to Larry for sticking to his guns with screwcaps and standard bottles, despite the consumer headwinds.
I’m really curious to see consumer response to Larry’s upcoming PN bottled in Bordeaux bottles. I’m keen to try some when it’s released to see how he tackles the variety and also curious about when he decides to release it given his releasing when ready to drink philosophy (another big kudos to him for that). Hope he does well in selling it. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I think there is another level to this as well.
The premium perception of a heavy bottle is highly desirable for those aspiring to having a premium brand. But making great wines, very generally and very simply speaking, requires great sites, great weather, and great vision/talent in farming and cellar. All of those are factors that are not ubiquitous, but a heavy bottle is something absolutely anyone can utilize.
It’s frustrating as heck. And definitely credit to Larry for his choices.
You are also correct about big bottles in Europe.
Example #1: Didier Dagueneau. He revolutionized Sauvignon Blanc in the Loire, and the wines were beautiful but the bottles are both taller and heavier by a considerable amount than traditional choices.
Example #2: Jorge Ordonez when the Naia label Verdejo first came out it was in a massive bottle(and considerably more expensive than it is now).
The single vineyard Bierzos from Palacios debuted in very big bottles, and there are many heavy bottles utilized in Spain. Often from great producers, but generally newer regions like Bierzo or Priorat.
I had a Carter Cellars cab tonight. Even the empty felt like it should be used for arm curls.
all this chat about big bottles and no one has mentioned Bedrock yet?
maybe its because i dont buy many Napa cabs but these bottles are by far the heaviest in my collection. its kind of crazy, to the point where i pick it up to pour what I’m sure is a whole nother glass of wine from the bottle only to find that its empty!
we were moving this past week and as my wife and I were moving the wine from one house to the other i noticed she specifically always commented on how heavy the boxes with Bedrock in them were… the craziest part is that i had already packed those boxes with less bottles because they were getting too heavy to easily move quickly!
all this talk about appearances has me questioning though:
we’re assuming that a person who is swayed by the heft of a bottle is deciding by picking up a bottle and looking at it more closely. i would argue against that. the people who are gonna be swayed by things like that in my experience have either 1) already chosen based on the picture on the label or 2) already chosen based on the name (either just because its a fun name or because its a collectible name). I would feel pretty confident about this in a bordeaux bottle shape. I’m a little less confident about this in a pinot shape. i do feel like people probably associate the fatter bottles with higher end pinots. heck, even i find myself doing this a little.
but if i’m being honest, i am more swayed by font type on a pinot bottle than bottle shape. dat perfect cursive script tho.
and kerning. You know it’s a good wine when the label has proper kerning. 
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Being honest, if there’s a chubby bottle that constantly rubs going in and out of my wine fridge and doesn’t play nice with the other bottles, then it has to be a really special wine for me to keep buying it. I would rather see a producer put their money into an interesting and informative label and good cork.
Thank you for the community here - Im the proprietor of neotempo.wine and have always used this forum for gathering powerful insights on great wines and how to stay a passionate consumer as we transitioned to a producer over the last decade. In 2020 and 2021 I used articles including this thread to do my research on bottle decisions for our inaugural release. When we found the over 37% of the carbon footprint of wine is attributed to manufacturing and weight of the glass bottle, we started to look at what we can do to reduce our footprint. I evaluated the lightweight glass options from many glass manufacturers and found many reluctant to offer their lightweight option - I offered to buy at a higher price for less material and did not get takers. So we decided to design our own bottle with a custom mold and managed to get Estal in Spain to produce the bottle. Our design for the bottle fits every wine rack and wine carriers we came across while reducing the air gap between the bottles and provide higher density packing for the wine. We documented the process here to share with other vintners and interested parties.
Estal is a great company that has led innovation in glass including wild glass - 100% post consumer recycled glass. We brought our design to market this year and even was a finalist in the luxe pack awards beating other wine brands. We have had so much positive feedback from customers and critics alike on having light weight bottles that are made from high percentage of recycled material. Again - I just wanted to acknowledge your voices here - it should help producers make better decisions.
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Way to go! Do you distribute at all? Seems from the site that you don’t but would be keen to hear how it’s received if you do send some to retail.
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Very interesting glass design. Would love to see in person or side by side comparison to others like diamond creek, shafer, opus one, etc.
We are in retail - currently at V-Wine Cellar in Younteville, Oakville Wine Merchant, ACME in St. Helena, Wine Stop in Burlingame, Weimax in Burlingame, Berry Brothers and Red in London, Sansibar in Germany, Gary’s in New Jersey. The bottle is well received - we get a ocasional it looks like a spirit or olive oil bottle - until they hold it in their hands or on a shelf where it feels like a wine bottle. We spent a lot of time working on how it feels in the hand and also it can be rest on a flat surface (doesn’t roll) to keep the cork wet while in transport. The bottom of the bottle is round so it works with bottling lines, wine holders/racks that expect that. I added some photos of the bottle in the wild
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Cristal has no punt tho. xD
Not sure if it’s EU directive or just a Swedish thing, but I have been informed by my importer that 750 grams is now the highest bottle weight allowed to be sold from 2024. I’m well below that these days, but my first bottlings of the La Malinche Mission was in the heavy 2160 mold that weighted in at 900 grams.
Very interesting reading about your hexagonal bottle @KiaB I think all winemakers have a secret desire for creating their own mold, would you mind sharing some of the costs for creating a custom mold?
Wish you nothing but success, @KiaB … hexagonal bottle is a great idea. Being able to use standard, flat shelving as opposed to wine racking would make a lot of storage design much less complicated.
I’ve been thinking about this for literally decades and agree that the variables are endless. Early on, I often opted to use the Big Stuff (my term is ‘war clubs’) for exceptional but little-known wines. I backed away from that over a decade ago. I was using a 600 gram bottle for my two basic wines and a 650 gram bottle for my (occasional) top wine. Last year I bottled the top wine in the same 600 gram bottle.
I want to go lighter. My bottle supplier in Perpignan offers a 570 gram, a 420 gram and a 300 gram(!?!). I will look at them before my next bottling. I have to wonder about international shipping of a 300 gram bottle though.
Dan Kravitz
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Pahlmeyer Propietery Red 1080 grams empty or almost 2.4 lbs. 
I’ve had a bottle from a Greek producer called Wine Art Estate that clocked in at 1230g empty (750ml)… Probably the best example of a non-piedmontese Nebbiolo I’ve ever had, but such an insane choice of bottle… Yes weight matters from a marketing perspective, but when Ch. Lynch Bages can maintain a premium feel with empty bottles weighing in at around 550g, I cannot fathom what the added heft brings to the table.