Why are some wine bottles so heavy, and do we need them at all? The case against excessive wine packaging and its heavy carbon footprint
- As drinking wine became more popular in the 2000s, some producers started using heavier bottles to distinguish their wines, increasing their carbon footprint
- Things got so bad that wine expert Jancis Robinson began publishing lists of the worst offenders. Scientists are now seeking alternatives to bottles for wine
Have you ever noticed that not all wine bottles are created equal? The tall and slender Rieslings, the iconic square-shouldered Bordeaux, the round and soft-contoured Burgundies. Transparent, green or brown. Corked or screw-capped, foiled or waxed, plainly or artistically labelled.
And then perhaps at the periphery of our attention, a distinction that is tactile rather than visual – some bottles feel light while others are surprisingly heavy.
Wine industry veterans remember simpler times, when all wines weighed roughly the same, just a few decades ago. It was the dichotomy between the rapid commoditisation of wine brought by the rise of the supermarket and the exponential growth of a global fine wine trade that shifted the packaging norms.
By the turn of the century wine had simultaneously never been cheaper and more expensive, and bottles started to play a crucial role in distinguishing wines produced for speculation from those made for everyday drinking.
Cue the era of lavish wine auctions for investment bankers, Robert Parker scores galore and bottles with punts so deep and glass so thick that they feel like magnums and require two hands for a controlled pour.
By the early 2010s things had got so out of hand that renowned British wine critic and writer Jancis Robinson started to campaign against unreasonably heavy bottles by regularly publishing lists of the worst offenders.
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What’s the big deal you may ask? Not to alarm you, but our planet is dying, and carbon emissions are a contributing factor to the global climate crisis.
When it comes to evaluating the sustainability of wine, a 2020 California Wine Institute study found that traditional glass bottles account for 29 per cent of the industry’s carbon footprint, and transporting those bottles uses another 13 per cent. That means nearly half the carbon footprint of a bottle of wine comes directly from its packaging and shipability.
I’ve weighed a few dozen empty wine bottles I have at home out of curiosity and discovered that the lightest (a Chilean Pais by Agricola La Mision) is 390 grams (13.75oz), while the heaviest (a Georg Breuer Riesling from Germany) clocks in at 710 grams.
While there’s no doubt that Breuer’s bottle is too heavy, this is, of course, nowhere near the big-ticket South African, Californian and French wines that often come in bottles weighing up to 1kg or even 2kg before the wine is even added.
This conversation taken to its ultimate conclusion begs a question: do we need glass bottles at all? After all, it is a 19th century packaging technology that was never meant to be used on such a large scale.
Scientists are experimenting with all sorts of alternative materials – from aluminium cans to paper and kegs – but in the meantime let’s do our part by consuming mindfully and eliminating unnecessary waste wherever possible.
At the end of the day, I don’t care how good a wine is – if it’s not produced and delivered in a responsible manner, I’m not interested. And neither should you be.
