Lighter wine bottles don’t affect quality and are better for the planet

Have you noticed wine bottles getting lighter? A slimmer profile, a smaller punt (the indentation in the bottom)? Fewer bottles requiring two hands to pour securely?

Those behemoths weighing as much as a kilogram (more than two pounds) when empty are not yet extinct, but they may be close to endangered. More and more wineries are shifting to bottles under 600 grams, even closer to 500 and as low as 380 grams. This is great news, and not just for our backs and our wrists. It's good for our planet.

Wineries that persist in using heavier glass continue to blame us — consumers — for believing that a heavy bottle signals a better wine. We should disabuse them of their belief in our gullibility. These peacock bottles, strutting to catch our attention, won't work.

Here's why bottle weight matters: Glass is extremely energy-intensive to manufacture. Glass bottles account for 29 percent of wine's carbon footprint — the single biggest factor — according to a study commissioned in 2011 by the Wine Institute in California. Transport is 13 percent, and bottle weight is a factor in that. Other studies, of varying areas and scope, put the combined contribution of glass to wine's carbon footprint closer to 50 percent.

Wineries are moving to lighter glass for a number of reasons. Certifications such as B Corp, Regenerative Organic and others require businesses (not just wineries) to measure their carbon footprint and take steps to reduce it. Many wine regions are encouraging or even requiring wineries to meet certain sustainability goals, including environmental stewardship. (About 80 percent of California wine is now made in a certified sustainable winery, according to the California Sustainable Winegrowing Alliance.) Climate-conscious groups such as International Wineries for Climate Action, the Porto Protocol and the Sustainable Wine Roundtable are urging wineries to lighten up.

There's also the bottom line. Jason Haas, general manager of Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, Calif., raised eyebrows when he wrote on the winery blog in early March that Tablas had saved more than $2 million since shifting to lighter bottles in 2010. Shipping accounted for more than half of that.

"It seems like we’re reaching a tipping point on moving toward lighter glass," Haas wrote. Wineries may be changing to help the planet, "but if they’re not, there are other incentives out there. Millions of small, green, rectangular ones."

In a phone conversation, Haas told me that reducing bottle weight was "low-hanging fruit for wineries looking to make meaningful reductions in their carbon footprint." Though he did note that many wineries still fear their reputation might suffer if they shift to lighter bottles, wine lovers, he said, "just want bottles that will fit in their wine racks."

Laura Catena, whose family owns four leading brands of wine from Argentina — the high-end Catena and Catena Zapata, plus the budget-oriented Alamos and Tilia — started lobbying for an Argentina standard of sustainability in 2008. This included moving to lighter bottles.

When I asked Catena about the impact of shifting to lighter bottles, she came back with a back-of-the-envelope calculation that should help convince skeptical wineries about the benefits of light-weighting. Alamos moved from 590 grams to 400 grams in 2014, and over the nine years since, the brand's importer saved more than $2.7 million in shipping charges, she estimated. The new bottle size meant the importer paid for 548 fewer shipping containers than it would have with the heavier bottles.

Catena told me her brands had reduced bottle weight by an average of 26 percent, and she was encouraging other wineries in Argentina to do the same. She also pointed out that most use bottles produced in Argentina, so even heavier bottles do not have the extra carbon footprint of those shipped long distances to wineries. (Many U.S. wineries buy their bottles from China.)

And yet, she was quick to cite the experience of a fellow winemaker from Argentina who saw U.S. sales drop by 30 percent after he adopted lighter bottles for a $25 wine. That was eight years ago, but "this kind of event really scares the wine trade," Catena says.

Surveys have shown that consumers equate heavy bottles with better wine. But there may be anecdotal evidence that this is changing. Catena quotes a customer in San Francisco who said she’d support lighter bottles after learning the environmental justification for them.

And the scales may be tipping for smaller wineries. Mark Henry, who crafts delicious wines from Italian grape varieties in California's Sierra Foothills for his boutique Montoliva label, experimented with heavier bottles but saw no boost in sales.

The cost factor is especially acute since Henry sells the majority of his wine through direct shipping.

"Heavier-weight bottles don't seem to have impacted sales volume positively or negatively, that I can tell," Henry says. He is shifting back to lighter bottles.

Like Montoliva, Cordant winery in Paso Robles sells most of its wine directly to consumers and has had to deal with price increases for both bottles and shipping. "We have already begun to move to lighter glass," owner David Taylor says. "We agree that most consumers don't care much about this, and the cost of heavier glass is measurable."

Consumers should care — and we should favor lighter bottles and support wineries that adopt them.