Will the shape and colour of a wine bottle influence the taste?

How to Drink Better: Wine producers from different regions tend to use different bottle shapes, sometimes as an identifier

Judging by John Wilson's local bottle bank, green is still the most popular bottle colour for wines. Photograph: iStock
Judging by John Wilson's local bottle bank, green is still the most popular bottle colour for wines. Photograph: iStock

The short answer is no. The different colour, shape and weight of a wine bottle is more about aesthetics and marketing.

Bottles have been around a long time. Ceramic or clay amphorae stoppered with clay were used thousands of years ago. Glass bottles became technically feasible in the 17th century and have been used ever since. But, with legitimate concerns about the sustainability of glass bottles, which require a lot of energy to make and recycle, the use of cans, plastic bottles, Tetra Paks or Bags in Box is increasing all the time.

Coloured glass is important to protect the wine from UV rays, which can harm the colour, aroma and flavour of a wine. Judging by my many visits to the bottle bank, green is the most popular colour, followed by brown. There is, however, a current fashion for blue glass. Many white and rosé wine bottles are clear. This is not a problem for fast-moving wines that only spend a short time on supermarket shelves, but leaving them in the sunlight or under kitchen lights for an extended period is not a good idea.

Different regions have developed various bottle shapes over the years, and these often serve as a useful marketing tool to identify a wine. For practical reasons it helps if a bottle is not too tall, so that it fits into shelves and racks, or not too narrow to allow stacking bottles on top of each other horizontally.

The three most popular bottle shapes are Bordeaux, Burgundy and Flute (also known as Mosel, Hock, Alsace). Bordeaux bottles have high shoulders, Burgundy have gentle shoulders and flutes are narrow and tall. Producers in other countries tend to follow these shapes, so that a cabernet sauvignon from Chile, Australia or California is likely to come in a Bordeaux bottle, while a Burgundy bottle is more common with chardonnay, syrah and pinot noir. Many prefer flutes for aromatic varieties such as riesling and gewürztraminer.

Sparkling wine bottles, including Champagne, tend to be made of thicker, heavier glass, often with a punt or indentation, to help withstand the internal pressure. In the past some countries saw heavier bottles as an indicator of quality, so producers in South America and Spain tend to use very heavy, thick glass for their best red wines. For environmental reasons, these are now frowned upon. Some influential critics such as Jancis Robinson refuse to taste wines that come in heavy bottles.

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