The wine industry is "shaping up" these days

Wines & Vines, August, 1993 by Andree Abecassis

Do clothes make the person? Do bottles and labels make the wine? Of course not, says the sophisticated drinker, it's what's inside that counts. But look again. The days of America vintners (and consumers) counting only on a wine's snob appeal, reputation and predictable bottle shape are waning. Merchandising and marketing of the product, once alien concepts in the tradition-bound wine business, are in full swing. And what does that mean? American winemakers are incorporating sales ideas from other industries. Today the trends are to pressure-sensitive labels, colored glass bottles in various shapes and sizes, ecologically correct containers, and lightweight glass bottles. Sacre Bleu! What would our French friends say? Is nothing sacred? Read on.

Until recently American wine, and particularly California wine, sold itself. Bottle shapes and colors were predictable. Consumers could expect to find red wine in a typical dark green Bordeaux bottle, whites were sold in the sloping-shoulder dark green or clear Burgundy bottles, German varietals in the slender amber "Hock" bottles and sparkling wines were in the thicker, dark green bottles associated with champagne.

Industry observers peg the current changes to the end of the '80s when competition for consumer dollars tightened. Suddenly there were too many wineries all wanting the same buyers. Bottle shape and glass color were a new way to attract shoppers--especially those with less money to spend.

Bottles

Demptos Glass imports bottles in a multitude of shapes and sizes from Europe. Their showroom in Napa, California holds over 500-600 samples reflecting an inventory of several million bottles in their warehouses. And those are the standard bottles. Several wineries (including Jordan, Geyser Peak, Domaine Chandon, Robert Mondavi) order custom bottles from Demptos with runs as small as 30,000 bottles. About 300 wineries buy from Demptos and their largest customers order in the 350,000-400,000 bottle range.

Of current trends, Godert Tegelberg, Demptos Glass, Inc.'s president/CEO says: "There are changes in the market--it's a maturing market; there is niche marketing, ethnic marketing; the retail chains now look at social demographics. The use of color leads to much more creativity in packaging. With new appellations, color bottles protect the specifics of where a wine is made."

Tegelberg continues: "Two years ago people wouldn't be seen dead looking at a blue bottle; the Italians are going into amber--it's good ultraviolet protection and fits with their varietals. The American market is changing from being locked into a European tradition; we're strong advocates of leaving the traditional European way. These wines--American and California--are different. It's appropriate to use different shapes. Some wineries still have the attitude that my wine is so good people will buy it no matter what."

Tegelberg's hunch about easy visual recognition makes sense. In a global market place where a generation of future wine drinkers are already visually attuned (television, video games and MTV) it may just be the right move to link bottle shape and color to a specific wine.

Along with unusual colors and bottle shapes Demptos has also introduced antique green, a very dark almost brown green that filters 98% of ultraviolet light in contrast to the more traditional champagne green that is supposed to filter only 90% ultraviolet light.

Color and shape are not the only changes in bottling. All the major glass manufacturers are pursuing "lightweighting." As the bottles get lighter they cost less to make and to ship.

"We wanted to come up with something that was unique to us," says Pam Blanchard, vice president, Calpac Container (Benicia, Calif.), a bottle distributor. "So we had our own private mold designed. We wanted to come up with a bottle that was domestically priced in comparison with the imported European bottles. We came up with a less expensive, lightweight bottle that will be manufactured locally."

Clos du Bois used the new lightweight bottles first in mid-July. They were designed for Calpac by Ball-Incom/Madera Glass and are manufactured in Madera (Calif.) and Seattle.

Although lightweight bottles are being emphasized this year they are a refinement of existing technology.

Explains Darrel Mazenko, Ball-Incom/Madera's vice president for sales (western region): "Lightweight bottles can reduce costs to the consumer. There have been no great recent scientific breakthroughs. These things are being fine-tuned. Improved surface treatments, computerization of glass-making furnaces and accuracy of temperature control have been going on over the last thirty years. There have been three phases. At first the flat-bottomed burgundy or claret bottle went from weighing (empty) 17.5 to 15.5 ounces. Now the lightweight bottles are weighing 14 ounces. The imports are generally heavier. We've learned how to do it better over the years."

At the Madera plant, Ball/Incom makes about 330 million bottles annually.