Even though the bottle is empty, it weighs more than most wine bottles do when they’re full.
Big, over-sized and shot-put heavy wine bottles have been a pain in the, er, wrist for years. Try working as a waiter on the restaurant floor on a typical Saturday night: You pick up a heavy wine bottle, ready to re-fill the customers’ glasses. The bottle weighs a ton; it must surely still be full, so you turn it upside down over a glass and…nothing comes out.
Even though the bottle is empty, it weighs more than most wine bottles do when they’re full. The Italians started this nonsense decades ago: dark, heavy bottles that signaled the seriousness of the wines within. Sometimes the wines were actually serious; sometimes it was just serious marketing.
A few decades ago, those marketers could be forgiven for their reliance on packaging. Maybe they should have focused upon winemaking or vineyard sourcing instead, but marketers do what they gotta do. Back then, the increased weight of a case filled with heavy bottles didn’t affect overall costs much. As an importer at the time, I barely factored bottle weights into my arithmetic.
Today shipping costs can be a lot higher. In an era of three dollar gasoline, shipping a case filled with bottles that weigh 20% to 50% more than standard bottles means wasted fuel. Wasted fuel means less gasoline available to the marketplace, and that means higher prices which, let’s face it, is not in our interests. Surely the wine world has wakened up to a changed fuel situation, and a need for efficient, responsible and green behaviors.
But at least when it comes to Champagne, the heavier than usual bottle has a purpose. The carbon dioxide bubbles in a typical bottle of Champagne reveal a high-pressure environment inside that bottle that’s equivalent to six atmospheres of pressure. While I’m not one of those who thinks that Dom or Father Pierre Perignon “invented’ sparkling wine, it is known that he promoted the use of heavy glass for his bubbling wines. Heavier so that the bottlers were sturdier, and so the cellar workers were less likely to be sprayed by flying glass and presumably, were less likely to be sporting eye patches. Who knows, maybe it was a cool look back then.
Since Champagne bottles are purposefully heavier, marketers have focused upon other aspects of packaging to help their products stand out. Perrier Jouet has its hand-painted Flower bottle, Fleur de Champagne, and sometimes they sell sets of hand painted glasses to go along with it. Champagne Ruinart has a squatty sort of bottle; Laurent Perrier’s Brut rose has a similar fire hydrant look. Nicholas Feuillatte Palmes d’Or and Gosset’s Grand Reserve come in heavier dimpled bottles.
Mumm de Cramant is fat and weighty, I mean the bottle, but then I guess I could say that about the wine too. Because while I don’t want to duck any arguments about quality in Champagne, I think the smarter way to think about Champagne is as a matter of style. The size and shape of the bottle says nothing about the character of the wine within. While marketing and image may be more powerful forces in Champagne than in any other area, you may have noticed that you don’t see quite as many reviews of Champagne as with other wines. Certainly, the big names in wine reviewing are understandably shy about dropping their proverbial 94 or 96 point score on a bottle of Champagne. Why? Because most Champagnes are not of a single vintage, but are comprised of a blend of vintages, a winemaking tool dating back to Dom Perignon’s time.
And that blend can change in subtle (or not so subtle) ways; most of these non-vintage blends have four or five different vintages in them. So the raw materials are changing. Does that mean you can’t predict how any of these wines will taste? No, people will choose certain brands that tend to certain styles.
If you like a lighter, more refreshing style of Champagne, you’re probably going to satisfied with Laurent Perrier, Piper Heidsieck, Veuve Clicquot, Heidsieck Monopole or Pommery.
If you want a bit more richness then Billecart Salmon, Henriot, Gosset, Dom Riunart, Nicholas Feuillatte, Pierre Peters or Henri Billiot should satisfy your yen.
And if you like powerful, intense Champagne, then Bollinger, Egly Ouriet, Pol Roger, or Louis Roederer should do, or at the screaming end of the scale, Champagne Krug.
Even the Spanish get into the act with the funny-shaped Kripta bottles or Segura Viudas Heredad Brut Reserve, which comes with its own glued-on silver pewter base. What’s up with that?
Eh, not much. It’s pleasant wine that’s needlessly tarted up with a funky, heavy bottle. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal, having wine bottles that are so heavy they can double as doorstops. But if the age of excess is really over, as so many have decreed, I’d rather lighten up on the bottles than stop drinking my Champagne altogether.
