How Much Does That Wine Bottle Weigh?

June 29, 2021 By Mike Veseth in sustainability, wine 14 Comments

How much does that wine bottle weight? The answer, too often, is simply too much.

Everyone talks about sustainability in the wine business (or at least that’s what it feels like sometimes), but how much of it is backed up by action and how much amounts to little more than greenwashing? That’s an important question and a complicated one, since sustainability has so many aspects and complicated trade-offs. What can a wine producer do to improve sustainability and signal it clearly to consumers?

One simple action is this: use lighter bottles. Glass bottles are an important part of wine’s carbon footprint and reducing weight even a little can have a significant impact when multiplied by the billions of bottles of wine that are produced and sold each year.

Tale of the Scale?

I’d invite you to weigh the next ten wine bottles that you open just to see big the gap is between the heaviest and lightest bottles. I used to include a segment about wine bottle weight in one of my Wine Wars talks. I asked for a couple of volunteers to come forward to heft bottles of different weights. They usually expressed great surprise at the difference and wondered why very heavy bottles were needed when lighter-weight alternatives are available. Good question.

I was reminded of the heavy bottle issue when a press release from Alois Lageder, the famous Alto Adige wine producer, appeared in my email inbox. Lageder’s commitment to the environment is unquestioned — they are one of Italy’s leading biodynamic estates. Their search for improved operational sustainability caused them to start thinking about wine bottles back in 2013, when they reduced bottle weight from 750 grams per bottle to 650 grams.

Some winemakers I know think that the weight of the bottle is an important marketing factor — heavy bottles signal quality. But obviously this isn’t always the case, as Katie Jackson of Jackson Family Wines told us a couple of years ago at the Porto Climate Change Leadership Conference. Jackson moved to lighter glass and then waited for a negative reaction … that never came. So they did it again.

And Lageder is doing it again, with a special new Burgundy-style bottle that takes the weight down to just 450 grams, which allows the winery to reduce glass use by 17% or 87 tons. The bottle on the left in the image above is the old heavier bottle and the one on the right is the new sleeker product. The difference is subtle, but it is there.

“Of course, there are already lightweight bottles on the market, but there is hardly a Burgundy bottle that is so light and still meets the demands of a valuable wine. Strangely enough, many people still believe today that a valuable wine must be equipped with a heavy bottle,” says Alois Clemens Lageder. “The bottle also has a name. It is called Summa and is deliberately not patented so that many winemakers are motivated to switch to lightweight bottles,” adds Helena Lageder.

Lageder is also eliminating metal such as screwcaps and foil capsules that might make their bottles difficult to recycle. Putting a bottle in the recycle bin doesn’t guarantee that it will actually be recycled. A lot of “recycled” materials end up in the landfill. Lageder knows they can’t solve that problem, but they can take steps to help.

Tale of the Scale?

Bottle weight is a frequent topic of conversation at The Wine Economist dinner table. Sue hefts each bottle and makes the call. Unexpected heavy and lightweight bottles are swept away to be weighed and recorded at the end of the meal. Just for fun I got out the group of bottles and alternative packing that I used in the Wine Wars talks to provide context . Here is the range of weights from lightest to heaviest.

Wine can 375 ml: 16 grams (x 2 = 32 grams)

One liter tetra-pak wine container: 40 grams.

Plastic wine bottle 750 ml: 56 grams

Eco wine bottle 750mml: 426 grams

Lightweight wine bottle 750 ml: 444 grams

New Lageder wine bottle:750 ml: 450 grams

Previous Lageder wine bottle 750 ml: 650 grams

Older Lageder wine bottle 750 ml: 750 grams

Heavyweight wine bottle 750 ml: 1084

Super heavyweight wine bottle 750 ml: 1198 grams

An ultra-heavyweight bottle of a wine from China: 1218 grams.

Lageder is clearly taking a big step in the right direction with its new bottles, which are amongst the lightest glass bottles we have found. They seem very confident that going light won’t affect consumer perceptions of their wine and I think they are right.

Can you believe that some wine bottles weigh more than a kilo? The 1084 gram bottle on the list was a Chilean wine, so it is interesting to speculate the size of the carbon footprint it created. The bottle might have been made in China, for example, then shipped to Chile and then on to the U.S. Incredible when they are good alternatives. At 1218 grams,, the bottle alone of that Chinese wine weighs more than full bottles of wine in lightweight glass containers.

Is Heavy Glass Sustainable?

It seems to me that the weight of the glass bottle is a sustainability issue. I wonder, do any of the many sustainability certification protocols specify a maximum weight for wine bottles? I really don’t know — I’d appreciate it if you’d use the comments section below to provide information about this issue.

Sometimes too much is too much and I think we have reached that point with heavy glass wine bottles.

Out of the Shadows: Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

One of the last in-person wine events we attended before the coronavirus pandemic put most such activities on hold was a symposium on the wines of Italy, which I wrote about on The Wine Economist. One particularly memorable session was sponsored by the Vino Nobile de Montepulciano consorzio, which was hoping to draw attention to the region and its wines.

Chianti’s Deep Shadow

It is easy for a wine region — even a very important one like Vino Nobile — to get lost amongst famous names from across Italy and around the world. As I wrote back in 2019 …

Italy is a complex mosaic of wine regions, styles, and brands. … The big regions crowd out the smaller ones on store shelves. This is the challenge facing Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG, for example. Vino Nobile is a small and distinctive appellation located about 65 km south-east of Siena. The four wines we tasted at the seminar were terrific and made me think about this region as a sort of Tuscan Stags Leap District — one of my favorite U.S. wine appellations.

But excellent wines are not necessarily enough when you need to compete with famous Chianti Classico. You need to get glasses in consumer hands and give the wine and region a distinct identity. Tourism (and not simply wine tourism) is one way to do this. Come for the history, food, and culture and learn about the wonderful wines. This seems to be part of Vino Nobile’s strategy to get out from under the shadow of its more famous neighbor and to tell a distinctive story about the region and the wines.

Hand-selling wines like Vino Nobile has been nearly impossible in the traditional sense during the pandemic, but Avignonesi, a historic Vino Nobile producer, took matters in their own hands and, with our permission, sent us samples of their wines and invited us to look more closely at what they are doing. The result was quite revealing.

Old But Not Stale

Avignonesi and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano are old names, but there doesn’t seem to be anything stale about them. Indeed, dynamic is the world that comes to mind.

Biodynamic, in fact. Virginie Saverys, a successful Belgian attorney and passionate wine lover, acquired Avignonesi in 2009 and set about expanding the vineyards and converting them to biodynamics. Avignonesi is now the largest biodynamic producer in Italy. The public face of the winey in terms of its hospitality programs was upgraded as well. I hope we can visit one day to sample the wines and experiences in person. Even at this distance, however, it is hard not to be impressed with what’s been done in just a little over a decade.

The Avignonesi wines themselves do nothing to diminish the positive impression. When a package with six small sample bottles arrived we looked for an opportunity to taste through the wines with friends who share our Vino Nobile focus. When we finally found the right date we sampled the wines from a Vashon Island deck overlooking Puget Sound with a pair of bald eagles soaring above. Not Italy, but still not the worst tasting room, do you think?

We tasted the traditional wines first, which meant a flight of Rosso di Montepulciano DOC, Vino Nobile de Montepulciano DOCG, and a special bottling, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano DOCG Poggetto di Sopra Alliance Vinum.

The Rosso was a bright wine, fruity with nice acidity. An excellent opening act. The Vino Nobile DOCG was stunning — a terrific wine with a long complex finish. The Poggetto di Sopra was even more distinctive — truly memorable. It is the result of a project involving Avignonesi and five other Nobile producers. Each made a particular wine meant to highlight the specific qualities of the terroir. The label (see above) shows the particular vineyard blocks that produced this wine.

Taken together the three traditional wines show what is possible in Vino Nobile and make a strong case for the region even in the context of its more famous neighbors. Bravo!

IGT Surprises

But there was more. Our second flight was devoted to three of Avignonesi’s IGT wines. IGT and similar wines are increasingly important in Italy and elsewhere in Europe as winemakers seek to make distinctive wines that display both their art and their craft, but don’t follow the strict appellation script.

The first IGT wine was called Da-Di — a 100% Sangiovese vinified in terracotta vessels that were made in Tuscany from clay like the soils where the grapes were grown. No oak. No stainless steel. This was a wild wine, full of fruit and acidity, alive in the mouth. Unique. Wow. I sure didn’t see this coming.

Next came Desiderio Merlot Toscana. Merlot vines love the clay and have been grown in parts of Italy so long that locals think of it as almost a native grape. This was an intense experience from start to finish and I think it was Sue’s favorite wine of the tasting. Unexpected.

Our final IGT wine was the Grifi Toscana, a “super Tuscan” blend of just about equal amounts of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. It lived up to the “super” moniker, intense, dynamic, with the long finish that characterized all the wines.

Four Take-Aways

So what are the take-aways from our experience with the Avignonesi wines? First, the quality of the IGT wines makes me even more enthusiastic about the creative potential for wines like this in Italy. Second, the stunning DOCG wines reminded me of how good traditional wines from this region can be in the right hands. Sometimes I think consumers take these wines for granted or, as noted above, mistakenly passing them by in favor of more famous appellations.

The final take-away is this. Tasting these samples was a treat. But we can’t wait until we can resume our travels and taste the wines and meet the producers in person. Soon, we hope!

Wine Book Review: Invisible Pignolo Revealed

June 8, 2021 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, Italian wine, wine, wine education, wine history Leave a comment

Ben Little, Pignolo: Cultivating the Invisible. 2021. Available exclusively from The Morning Claret Shop.

Pignolo: Cultivating the Invisible is quite a fantastic multi-media exploration of one of Italy’s (and the world’s) nearly forgotten grape varieties. My first impression of the book was fascination — so playful, so colorful. I just had to thumb through it to discover what was on the next page. Then there was puzzlement, because I would read short passages and it wasn’t really clear what was going on.

First fascination, then puzzlement, then — finally — enlightenment. Ok, that might be too strong, but I went back and read it from the start and it all made sense.

First comes the history of Pignolo in the context of the history of its native region, Friuli Venezia Giulia in Italy’s upper right-hand corner. A really interesting explanation of how Pignolo, wine, and the region evolved. Then the history shifts a bit to author Ben Little’s personal experience with Pignolo, which started only a few years ago (2016) but developed quickly and soon involved many others. There is much of a technical nature to learn through Little’s first person reports.

And then there are the lessons that Pignolo teaches us, inspirations, meditations, not sure what to call them. But by the time you get there you are ready to slow down, let the flow carry you, and absorb them, which might not have been the case at the start. Colorful graphics act as signposts along the way.

Little’s notion that Pignolo is an invisible grape variety works. It was always there all along, you just didn’t see it. That’s how it happened for him. At first he thought that there were just a few people in Friuli growing the grapes and making wine. But once word got out that there was interest, more and more plantings and producers began to appear until there were enough to fill a room (which Little did, with a little help from Pignolo’s friends).

Pignolo might be invisible to you, too. That’s how it was for us. Did we ever taste Pignolo during our trips to Friuli? I had to think and use the ample resources of Little’s big book. We might have tasted Pignolo when we visited the Cormons cooperative, but there were so many wines there it is hard to know. Possibly when we stayed at Il Roncal. Bastianich makes an IGT blend called Calabrone, which is includes a splash of Pignolo as a key ingredient. When we didn’t have time to taste it at the winery Wayne Young wrapped up a bottle for us to take home and I’m very glad he did. Amazing.

We staying in one of the rooms at Borgo San Daniele and I remember distinctly the tasting where Mauro Mauri poured his Arbis Ròs Pignolo from magnum. What an amazing wine. I tried to get him to sell me some bottles, but it was all gone. Only that magnum was left. And the memory, too.

Our final taste of Pignolo was at Paolo Rodaro and that’s when we met Ben Little. Little was nice enough to help with some difficult translations, but you could tell even then, not too long after his Pignolo journey had begun, that his focus was on the particular wine and Rodaro’s version was especially intense and interesting. There was another connection that I only learned about by reading this book — like me, Little is a recovering student of economics and can’t resist adding his insights to the blend.

Having read Little’s book, I want to go back to Friuli and visit the small region of Rosazzo, which seems to be Pignolo’s spiritual home. Pignolo was pretty much invisible to me a few days ago, now that I see that it has been there all along, I want to ask it a few questions.

In the meantime, I couldn’t resist trying to track down a bottle of Pignolo here in the U.S. and refresh my memory. I was able to find the 2005 La Viarte Pignolo Riserva at Kermit Lynch‘s online store. We pulled the cork and paired the wine with Caesar salad and a prime-grade dry-aged steak — clearly this was a special meal. The wine lived up to the occasion. The first glass was a bit wild, but it settled down and developed along several axes over the next two hours. Sue said that the wine really pulled itself together when the food arrived just as it was meant to do, I think.

Some wine experiences are delicious but not especially interesting — you know what you are getting. Others are interesting, but not necessary delicious — you are happy to stop after the first glass. The Pignolo was both, so it is easy to understand Little’s fascinating with it.

Pignolo: Cultivating the Invisible is a highly personal memoir of and tribute to a very distinctive grape and the people who have nurtured it as it nurtured them. More than a book, it is an experience. Highly Recommended.