If you’ve ever casually noticed average people (not wine geeks) buying you see they drift to the heavy bottle with odd shapes…equate to high quality (in their buying mind).
This provoked me to wonder what else people find crass in wine bottle design. Faustino’s frosted glass?, traditional fiaschi for Chianti? squared off designs a la the relaunch of Rosemount or a Lambrusco producer I know? Ostentatious wax seals? Wire cages popular in Rioja? Clear glass bottles of some Champagnes?
A guilty pleasure is I rather like the mis-shapen bottle style best known in Travaglini’s Gattinara wines. A right pain to cellar, so they invariably end up on top
Great info!
I have to really, really want the wine to buy an oversized 750. I generally avoid.
P-Y C-M’s bottles aren’t just big. They are heavy and thick.
I have standard racking, plus sized racking, magnum racking, half bottle racking, X racking and box racking yet somebody always comes up with a bottle that doesn’t fit properly in any of the racks. The ones with the extra long necks are the biggest problem. They don’t fit in most of the racking and need to be located in a corner where nobody will run into them. That can dictate where other wines must be displayed for continuity in the wine room.
Forgot the caveat. Back in 2005 I put new linoleum squares down in the walk-in humidor of old store and guess what, a heavy and fat bottle is what I used to roll the squares in tight. Bet the people who took over our old spot in 2008 had to jackhammer up those linoleum squares or incorporate them in their build out design.
The carbon footprint alone irritates me. Impressive maybe, but it has nothing to do with what’s in the bottle.
It was after lugging a Santenay about 15 blocks that I decided I was done with PYCM
+1
Take away the first world problems of storage, it’s just wasteful without any added value. Extra material, extra fuel needed to ship to market (so added cost to the end user). I would like to keep the planet habitable while my wines age but even if your not a tree huger like me, waste is still just waste. This goes for the wax and synthetic dipped necks as well.
Thanks for the info. Very interesting.
Bingo ! Right on the money. There is so much market research pointing to the wine consumer going for weight and unique bottles. Wine trade magazines constantly have packaging articles now and results of packaging competitions to reinforce the trends.
Well, I’m not sure which is worse. Hugely thick bottles or hugely thick wax capsules that take a hammer and pry bar to get off.
As much as I dislike wasteful packaging, I can’t be the only person who’s thankful it has driven off some number of PYCM buyers 