What's in a Bottle?

Last week someone asked a question about the wine bottle shape to one of our guests, who revealed that they created their own mold for it, but the specific shape chosen was fairly traditional other otherwise fairly unremarkable.

I’d always wondered about bottle shapes, and did some digging. It turns out that for the most part, the shapes are the result of tradition more than anything else - most wines would taste the same bottled in other bottle shapes, and regional styles have calcified, with wine types that originate from certain places but produced in other ones sometimes adhering to old tradition to send signals about their inherited legacy.

Originally, wine bottles were made to be stored standing up, and were rounder. Later shapes were more cylindrical, allowing them to be stored on their sides, and this change, which coincided with the adoption of the cork closure, led to the development of the regional styles that persist today. Glassblowing techniques were different in various parts of the world, which had significant influence on the styles that emerged. The variety in shapes may have also helped illiterate people better distinguish the wines in the bottles before they opened them.

Source: Wine Folly

The most common bottle type, the Bordeaux is commonly used for red wines, and has high shoulders. It is thought, but by no means confirmed, that perhaps those high shoulders also catch sediment from the wine as it ages. Fortified wines like port and madeira are stored in a similar shaped bottle, but port bottles are shorter and squatter, and often have a slight bulge in the neck to trap sediment while pouring.

The Burgundy bottle has sloped shoulders, a wider base, and is often “used worldwide for Burgundian grapes (pinot noir and chardonnay), as well as syrah, grenache, chenin blanc and others.”  The Alsace bottle is taller and thinner than most other wine bottles, also with gently sloping shoulders. It’s generally used for Riesling; there’s lots of variety in the bottle’s color, including blue.

If you’ve ever felt that sparkling wine bottles were heavier than the rest, it’s not just in your head. The Champagne bottle style (which is typically quite similar to the Burgundy) must be heavier to handle the pressure inside, which can be as much as 3 times the pressure in the average car tire. They often have a dent in the bottom called a punt. While the punt might make the bottle stronger and may help sediment settle out of the wine, it’s not clear that this is the case. It’s likely just a remnant of the techniques used to produce the bottles when they were still handmade. Notably, the Cristal bottle has a flat bottom.

There are many more specialty bottle shapes that I haven’t gone into here, and some houses get very creative, especially in the premium wine category.

Sources:
“Decode Wine Just By Looking at the Bottle” - Wine Folly

“A Brief Guide to Wine Bottle Design” - PUNCH

“Wine Bottle Shapes: Just The Facts” - NewAir 

Wine bottle shapes: why are they so different?” - Winery Lovers

"Cristal Champagne: The Wine of Tsars and Stars" - Wine Folly