Market drives wine bottle revolution

Wines & Vines, Oct, 1995 by Larry Walker

"We will build our own winery when we get the volume to justify it," Sayre said. And he expects the new packaging will help grow that volume.

RELATED ARTICLE: WINE BOTTLES AT A GLANCE

The total U.S. wine bottle market for 1994 was almost two billion bottles, according to industry sources. In terms of dollars, estimates ranged between $450 and $500 million. But the leading domestic bottle maker supplies only one winery: Gallo. Here's how the percentage of production shakes out:

E&J Gallo 35% Ball Madera Glass 30% Owens-Brockway 24% Anchor Glass 10% All Imported Glass 1%

RELATED ARTICLE: BOTTLE HISTORY

We tend to think of glass bottles as fairly modern. And there is some truth in that. It wasn't until the 17th century that technology reached the point that the glass bottle could be produced with a fairly uniform neck size, thus making the marriage of bottle and cork possible and opening the way to the development of the modern wine trade.

But glass itself goes back at least 5,000 or 6,000 years and probably earlier when glass beads were used as jewelry. Glass bottles were made in Egypt at least 1,400 years before the Christian era. A glass-producing furnace from the reign of Amenhotep IV and dated 1370 B.C. was discovered in 1891.

For several thousand years, bottles were made by spinning molten glass around a solid metal rod the desired diameter of the inside of the bottle, or by pouring molten glass into a pre-formed mold. It wasn't until about 50 B.C. that the art of blown glass was discovered. Some authorities say it was developed in the Mideast, in Syria; others credit the invention to the Romans.

Certainly, the use of glass was common during the peak of the Roman empire. Glass making, like many other things, fell into a decline during the centuries following the fall of Rome. A revival of artisan glass came with the Renaissance in the 12th century and by the 19th century, the traditional shapes of wine bottles, that we still know today, had developed.

(Information on the history of glass and the glass bottle is taken from the Spring/Summer, 1995 issue of the "Simi News". In limited space, a great deal of information about wine bottles is presented. "Simi News" is edited by Nancy Gilbert at Simi Winery.)