Why do wines come in different coloured glass bottles?

In the past, each wine producing region had its own distinctive bottle shape. Bordeaux came in long narrow bottles with pronounced shoulders and Burgundy in wider bottles with a gently sloped shoulder. These two are by far the most popular styles of bottle today, but not the only ones.

German Mosel and Alsace wines typically come in very tall narrow green bottles and those from the Rheingau are usually brown. Further south in Germany, the Franken region uses flat flask shaped bottles, also used in Portugal for rosé wines such as Mateus Rosé. Sparkling wine bottles tend to be thicker and heavier to withstand the pressure of all those bubbles.

Some bottles have punts or dimples on the bottom. Historically this was to make sure handblown glass would stand upright and not topple over. Today they are simply ornamental and not very environmentally friendly.

Most wine bottles were and are still coloured; this is to prevent prolonged exposure to UV rays which can affect the colour, aroma, and flavour of a wine and sometimes cause oxidation. While a short period under supermarket lighting is unlikely to harm a wine, clear bottles should be kept in the dark. Iconic Champagne Louis Roederer Cristal, which comes in a clear bottle, always has an orange wrapper to prevent any harm.

An awareness of climate change is having an effect of wine bottles in various ways. At one stage producers (particularly those from Spain and South America) put their finest wines in big heavy bottles with very thick glass. Not only do these use more energy to produce, they are also far more costly to ship.

Thankfully this is becoming less common. I recently came across a bottle that weighed 983g, almost a kilo, more than twice the weight of an average bottle. These days responsible producers use lighter bottles, but many consumers still associate quality with heavier bottles.

While recycling our bottles helps, it is not an ideal solution as the glass has to be melted down and reformed. The Catalan wine producer Torres has been working with Gonzalez Byass, another large Spanish producer, to agree a single style of bottle which can be collected from restaurants, washed and refilled. Other producers are looking at alternative packaging such as bag-in-box, cans and kegs. So after thousands of years, is it possible that the days of the wine bottle are numbered?