Wine Packaging
Commercially traded wine containers
have evolved over thousands of years from goatskins and earthen jars
to polybag-in-boxes and glass bottles. Relatively heavy and fragile,
glass has the distinct advantages for wine packaging of being both
chemically inert, preventing contamination, and impervious to oxygen,
preventing spoilage.
LUSCIOUS LITTLE BOTTLES
Historical credit for invention of glass blowing goes to the Romans,
although glass was essentially a luxury item for centuries. The oldest
wine bottle ever found has been dated to 321 A.D. In 1821, an
English company patented a machine to mold bottles that were uniform
in size and shape. Selling wine already bottled, however, was illegal
in England until 1860, due to both the political influence of pub
owners and the lack of both labeling standards and means of authenticating
the fill volume.
Wine was sold by the measure and bottled
after the sale, with the customer providing the bottles that were
often identified with a personal seal. Hand-made paper labels identifying
the contents developed in the late 1800s; printed labels came after
1860.
NO MATTER WHAT SHAPE
Shapes
for wine bottles evolve primarily from area tradition. There are "classic"
shapes in general use by the majority of producers from any given
area and "modern" shapes that are essentially more "artsy" variations
of the classics. The Italians seem to have the most variations, such
as the tall bottles of fanciful shapes that sometimes hold Chianti.
There
are also fairly wide variations in glass colors, from crystal clear
through various shades of green and brown to nearly opaque, occasionally
some blue as well. Light, whether natural or artificial, speeds wine
spoilage. Darker bottle colors and certain shades protect wine from
light, but producers generally select glass color based upon packaging
appeal, rather than solar security.
Every bottle has
a bottom that may be either flat or "punted". The punt evolved as
a pushed-up section of varying depth in the center of the bottom.
This indentation was formed as a "handle" for glass blowers
to turn their creation. So that bottles could stand upright, it was
much easier to form an even plane by pushing up on the center of the
bottom, rather than turning one that was perfectly flat. The punt
forms a handle for Champagne
riddlers and strengthens and spreads the pressure over more surface
area to prevent sparkling wine bottles from bursting. Although they
are more aesthetic than functional on still wine bottles, punts may
serve as convenient thumb handles for strong-wristed servers and also
help somewhat to direct deposits of sediment as bottles age. The punted
bottle, by rendering the shape taller or wider, also gives the illusory
impression that it contains more than a flat bottom bottle; it doesn't.
Every bottle also has a neck where
the bottle narrows and the cork is inserted to seal the contents.
On the classic shapes, necks vary slightly in length. For most American
consumers, this is inconsequential, since 95% of all wine sold in
this country is consumed within 24 hours.
It is, however, an important feature
for collectors to observe the bottle neck and its level of fill or
"ullage". A high fill is desirable, because this means there is less
oxygen trapped in the bottle to hasten spoilage. However, a fill that
is too high can be too sensitive to small changes in temperature and
be prone to leakage. The condition of older wines can be estimated
by ullage.
Some variations will occur, because
bottle capacities commonly differ by one percent, equal to a quarter
ounce in a standard size bottle, not much, but often observable in
the narrow neck. To overcome this, some sophisticated bottling lines
actually "visualize" the fill level with light beams, rather than
measure the quantity injected.
OF COURSE SIZE
MATTERS
Until the 1970s, wine bottle sizes varied from about 650 to 850 milliliters,
each appellation had their own standard. The European Union established
standards that have been adopted worldwide. The "standard size" wine
bottle is now 750 milliliters (25.4 U.S. fluid ounces), which the
United States adopted, along with the rest of the Metric system, in
1979. One size does not necessarily fit all, however, and so various
smaller and larger sizes are often available.
|
W I N E
• B
O T T L E
•
S I Z E S
• and
• D
E S I G N A T I O N S
|
|
MEASURE |
SIZE
EQUIVALENCE |
*
SERVINGS |
POPULAR
NAME |
| 187
milliliters |
quarter
bottle |
1 |
Split |
| 375
milliliters |
half
bottle |
2 |
Tenth
(often wrongly referred to as a "Split") |
| 500
milliliters |
two-thirds
bottle |
3
- |
Half
Liter |
| 750
milliliters |
standard
bottle |
4
+ |
Fifth |
| 1.5
liter |
two
bottles |
8
+ |
Magnum |
| 3
liter |
four
bottles |
17
+ |
Double
Magnum,
Jeroboam (sparkling wine ONLY) |
| 4.5
liter / 5 liter |
six
/ six + two thirds bottles |
25
/ 28 |
Jeroboam
(claret shape)
Jeroboam (burgundy shape) |
| 6
liter |
eight
bottles |
34
|
Imperial
Magnum (claret shape)
Methuselah (sparkling or burgundy shape) |
| 9
liter |
twelve
bottles (one "case") |
50
+ |
Salmanazar |
| 12
liter |
sixteen
bottles |
67
+ |
Balthazar |
| 16
liter |
twenty
bottles |
112
+ |
Nebuchadnezzar
(sparkling wines) |
| ±
12 liter to 16 liter |
±
sixteen to twenty bottles |
90
to 112 + |
Nebuchadnezzar
(table wines) |
| ±
Size depends upon producer and origin |
*
@ 6 oz. |
|
Larger
bottles are not only impressive, festive, and convenient for serving
more guests, they are also demonstrably better at preserving the wine
and extending the window of drinkability beyond that of smaller bottles.
This may occur because the greater volume of wine makes the amount
of trapped air, as well as the cork seal, proportionately smaller.
Another factor may be that larger volumes of liquid change temperature
more slowly and are therefore more resistant to potentially damaging
fluctuations.
SEAL
OF APPROVAL?
Keeping wine in the bottle until consumption is another concern.
The dual purposes of any closure for wine are containment
and preservation. Wine is sensitive to oxygen and will spoil
before it has time to evaporate, so the latter purpose is the more
critical. It is, however, much easier to keep wine from escaping bottles
than to keep air from invading them.
In ancient
times, when little was known of wine chemistry (or general hygiene,
for that matter), devices such as tightly bundled straw or oil-soaked
twisted rags may have been stuffed into bottles to prevent spilling.
Although glass bottles appear smooth-surfaced, they are actually imperfect,
with shallow "hills and valleys", especially inside the
neck, so these closures were only marginally effective for containment
and not-at-all for preservation.
Eventually,
stoppers made from bark of the cork oak, quercus suber, were
discovered to be excellent closures, because of their elasticity and
their apparent impenetrability to both moisture and oxygen.
A cork
oak is not harvested the first time until it is 50 years old or more.
After that virgin harvest, the bark is only taken every eight to twelve
years. Trees may live for more than 200 years and are never cut down.
It is the only tree species known to regenerate its bark. Forests
of cork oaks grow all around the Mediterranean Sea, but the majority
of all wine corks come from Portugal, which generates 60% of cork
production world-wide.
Cork
bark is harvested by hand, using axes, going about halfway up the
trunk, below the branches. For eight to twelve months the cork is
left to dry and season outdoors. After seasoning, the raw sheets of
cork (about 2 feet by four feet) are boiled at fairly high temperatures
for 50-75 minutes. This removes tannin, contaminants and impurities
and swells the cork. The pieces are allowed to cool and dry somewhat
for 2-4 days, then initially graded for thickness, followed by gradings
for density and quality. After grading, the material is sent to the
appropriate processing facility. Wine corks are punched from the top-graded
sheets, then treated with peroxide to remove surface contaminants.
Only
about 20-30% of the total harvest is useful for making wine corks.
Although more than 70% of cork production by weight is used for other
purposes, such as automotive gaskets, sandals, construction materials,
and various stoppers of other kinds, more than 70% of cork production
value comes from wine corks.
Corks
may be quite good as wine bottle closures, but they are far from perfect.
Since corks come from living plants, they are subject to the quality
variability of all harvested commodities. All corks are not created
equal. They suffer the same variety of grain, density, imperfections
and susceptibility to defects from disease or boring insects as any
wood product.
An increasing
problem in wine corks has become contamination by the chemical compound
2,4,6-Trichloroanisole, or TCA.
A result of the reaction between chlorine used to sterilize and process
the corks and a mold that is present in many wood products, TCA produces
a distinctive foul, musty, medicinal odor that can ruin wine. This
problem is not exclusive to corks; all wood products in wineries are
susceptible, including barrels, barrel racks, tanks, walls, scaffolding,
shipping pallets, cardboard boxes and containers, etc. Any winery
still using bleach as routine disinfectant is at extremely high risk.
Both the cork and the wine industries are trying to develop solutions.
Natural
cork stoppers have been the traditional seals for fine wines since
the 18th Century. Wine consumers enjoy the ritual of carefully removing
the cork from a bottle. The industry has long promoted the idea that
superior wine comes only in cork-finished bottles and that wine in
screwcap or screwtop bottles is inferior.
Wine
dogma historically touts "the minute exchange of oxygen that
corks allow in order for wines to properly age." Recent research
that compared the same wines closed with both corks and screwcaps,
going back to the 1997 vintage, has shown that wine will age, with
or without oxygen, and that wine in screw-capped bottles will age
with both greater consistency and greater safety from spoilage.
The Australian
Wine Research Institute tested and compared various wine closures
over a total period of 40 months to evaluate their ability to preserve
wine. Although the tests are ongoing and incomplete and despite historic
idolatry for corks, screwcaps are most likely superior to corks for
keeping wine contained and preserved in glass bottles. They have gained
increasing acceptance in a very short time with the Australian wine
industry, it will probably take much longer for wine consumers of
the world to accept them.
[Please pardon the following
intrusion of editorial content, but this seems a more fitting spot
for it than what would be our normal placement, in the Wrath
section.]
ONE
BLADDER OF PINOT, PLEASE!
Since the primary purposes of any wine containers are to transport,
preserve and dispense, the modern pinnacle of wine packaging is, without
question, the bag-in-a-box. It is light weight, prevents oxidation
of the contents over a reasonably long period of time, even when only
partially full, and requires only a pinch to pour (this serving ease
may also present a drawback in households with children).
For collectors,
one drawback is that the bag-in-box is probably not conducive to wine
cellaring. Although this contention is purely speculative, I am curious
about any research regarding the phenomenon. Any graduate students
with the temerity (huevos grandé) to select this as
thesis material have my full support, as well as the venal condemnation
of wine snobs worldwide.
This
brings up the other, primary and undeniable drawback: image. Suffice
it to summarize my opinion, that I hope to be the first in line when
vintage dated Rutherford Cabernet Sauvignon and Russian River Valley
Pinot Noir are offered in convenient and economical 5-liter bag-in-box
containers. As both the glut of grapes and consumer resistance to
wine inflation increase, this may not be merely a wine bibber's pipe
dream.
Jim
LaMar
RELATED
LINKS
The Alternative
Wine Packaging Alliance has their own site with news articles
and links to producers.
Should you think
premium bag-in-a-box wines are only a pipedream, I invite you to visit
Blackbox Wines
or French Rabbit.
Brad Harrington
has nicely-done articles about bottle
shapes and bottle
sizes on his West Coast Wine Net site that offer a bit more detail
on the subjects (although he and I disagree on both the real reason
for punts and on which size may be properly called a "split").
The Peninsula
Woodturner's Guild (!?!), from Australia, has a brief and interesting
article on the Evolution
of Wine Bottle Shapes, complete with diagams.
Jason Curtis has
consolidated and organized links related to all matters of wine packaging
on packagingWINE.com
FinestWines.com
has a diagram (mid-page) that explains the various levels of ullage.
There is also, unrelated but interesting, a list of the best French
wines from older "classic" vintages.
Amorim
is a cork supplier and the Cork
Information Bureau is a marketing group for the wine cork industry.
Both sites have lots of detailed and interesting information about
corks.
Understanding
Wine Labels is a series of five articles elsewhere on this site.
