Red white and green
Have you wondered why a wine-bottle should traditionally have a punt, that depression in its base? In fact no one seems entirely certain how it originated - perhaps to make the base stronger or to give a non-rocking bottom to hand-blown bottles. Nowadays, the flashier sort of wine-waiter likes to use it as a thumb-rest, balancing the bottle on two fingers while pouring, but that's mere elegant opportunism.
Unfortunately, the main reason for punts these days seems to be furthering the aim of making the bottle heavier and thus - the marketing logic goes - more impressive. Which will irrefutably indicate, along with embossed and torn-edged label, that the wine inside must be worth its exorbitant price. Many punts will now swallow the sommelier's thumb up to the wrist.
These big, macho bottles are increasingly being attacked from those concerned about their environmental cost, given that they serve no real purpose that less pretentious and egregious bottles don't. Glass is a great container (let's ignore the cork-or-screwcap closure debate for now), but whether a 750 bottle weighs 400 grams or 1200 makes no difference to the contents - though a heavier one might break less easily under rare circumstances.
South Africa's biggest producer by far, Distell (makers of brands like Nederburg, Fleur du Cap and countless others) is amongst those progressively introducing lighter-weight bottles. Distell claims that for the year to June 2010 it saved 333.5 tons of glass by reducing the weight of 2.9 million wine bottles; it is also aiming at more glass bottle recycling.
It's not just sheer production volume that is affected by lighter bottles. Transportation has a huge impact on the carbon footprint of any wine producer. Many of the chest-beating bottles have travelled empty from Europe to here, weighing as much as filled standard bottles, and then a good proportion of those will travel back weighing more. It's insane. It's wrong. Think of that next time you weigh in your mind and your hand a bottle like those of Rust en Vrede, Mvemve Raats De Compostella, Paul Cluver Seven Flags, Vergelegen V or Boekenhoutskloof Syrah. They're not the only grotesqueries by any means, and most expensive wines need to lighten up. Roll on the time - and it's surely not far off - when wines like this are going to look old fashioned and clunky.
A radical alternative, already in use elsewhere, has recently been introduced in South Africa. Bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate, more cheerfully known as PET, weigh only 50g, and are fully recyclable. A pair of modestly priced wines called Tread Lightly has just become available at Pick 'n Pay (a Merlot and a Sauvignon Blanc, R39 each). Untasted by me as yet, they should be decent enough, as they're from Backsberg Estate - which is perhaps, incidentally, the local producer most sincere and most advanced in keeping its carbon footprint small.
PET will never replace glass at the top end - image apart, it's unsuitable for maturing wine in. But it will be interesting to see its acceptability in the market - producers around the world are watching closely, as they're aware of growing concerns about the implications of wine packaging.
As to the ultra-heavy bottles, they are the SUVs of the wine world, and like suburban SUVs they should be sneered and taxed to death.
First published in the Mail & Guardian, 13-19 August 2010
- Tim James's blog
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A hopeful addendum
I've just been given a bottle of Paul Cluver Seven Flags Pinot Noir 2008 to taste - and it came with the assurance that it's a little lighter this year, and will be getting a little lighter still over the next few years (winemaker Andries Burger says they need to do it gradually). Which is good news - but when lifting this bottle it is scarcely possible to believe that last year's could have been heavier! The punt, incidentally, is six centimetres deep, nearly 20% of the height of the bottle... You've got a long long way to go to respectability, Andries!
Another winery that is lightening up a bit, I believe, is Chamonix, the fine Franschhoek producer. If anyone out there can tell me more about such hopeful moves anywhere else, I'd be pleased to know.
Given that Paul Cluver Estate and Chamonix are both amongst the finest producers in the country perhaps this is suggests that one day modest-weighted bottles will be a sign that the producers are confident in the contents of their bottles, and don't need to make the statement in wrist-cracking weight, but can leave that to the wannabes.
LATER: Chris Williams of Meerlust tells me that "the Meerlust Chardonnay and Pinot Noir 2009 are bottled in the standard 550g bottle, whereas the the previous vintages were bottled in the heavy 820g Burgundy bottles. (Still light compared to some of those ultra heavy monstrosities). There was no "phasing in" period. The Rubicon, Merlot and Cab have always been bottled in standard 550g claret bottles."
Re: A hopeful addendum
Dear Tim,
the pun in the bottle was not only a way to reinforce the glass, or to give the possibility to uneducated sommelier to fist f... the bottle (because it is not part of the service to do this, except for the champagne) but to be a sediment trap.
Long before we over fined, over filtered and overstabilised the wines, most of the wines were generating deposits during their long lifetime in the bottle. My grand father would never drink anything younger than 25 years old, except the traditionnal beaujolais nouveau, a yearly celebration. These wines were not sediment free!
Anyone would had the chance to open an old wine, would have noticed that when the wine is poured, into the glass or the decanter, the heavy deposit was easily kept in the bottom of the bottle, trapped in the inside groove created by the pun. If it was a flat bottom, the wave generated by the service inside the bottle would put all the sediment in suspension.
So we need these deep pun, and even the PET bottles are providing some.
But I cannot agree more with the reduction of the carbon emissions due to heavyweight bottles. At Signal Hill winery, we moved to a lighter range of wine bottles for 90% of our bottling, but the most significant move has been to use 100% of recycled glass bottles. The footprint of these bottles are 6% of a new bottle, and it creates jobs in the recycling business which is socially responsible. Increasing the collection of glass to feed the industry is the easiest step to reduce our carbon footprint.
Regarding the PET bottles, yes they are lighter and will help airlines to keep wine onboard. However the recycling of non white/clear PET is not organised in SA, they become de facto non recyclable, but you can burn them with no toxic emission. And the manufacture of raw PET have an hefty price to pay in term of carbon...
So there is no easy solution, and we must support every move, specially when wineries understand their ego must come from their wine, not their Hummer like bling packaging.