The fine wines of the Langhe > Bottles

The bottle is the glass container where the wine, which is directed to the customer, is put. Utilizing glass instead of terracotta, wood, metal, or animal bladders determined a qualitative grow for the wine, which is subjected to minor pollutions and degenerations. Although the extreme malleability of glass, mainly to offer a guaranty of capacity, in each wine area different shapes of bottles were developed, which remained basically unchanged through the centuries, and sometimes became international standards. From an area to another, the standard bottle capacity, which is cork-sealed, used to vary from 700 cl to 720, 750, 760, 780. Lately, the 750 cl bottle has become dominant in each county, where wine is produced, except for a few Eastern European countries. The most common bottle shapes are:

• BOARDEAUX, which was born in Bordeaux region and is mainly utilized for red wines; it has a neck which is inserted on accentuated shoulders which, at the time of the pouring, create a sort of barrier, which impedes solid residuals (once common to all aged wines) to flow into the glass;

• BURGUNDIAN, which comes from Burgundy, is characterized by a cylindrical-conic shape, and it was utilized both for red and white wines indifferently;

• CHAMPAGNE, which was born in Champagne, is worldwide the dominant shape for sparkling wines. This bottle, which has a shape similar to the Burgundian one, is characterized by a thick and heavy glass, which can resist to 10 atmosphere pressures, and by a opening which has a ring-shaped protrusion, on which metallic clips or small cages are utilized to anchor the cork and impede its expulsion by the gases contained in the wine;

• RHINE, which comes from the Rhine area, in Germany, has a cylindrical-conic shape, which is very much long, and it has always been utilized for white wine preservation.

There are also not very well-known bottles such as:

• PULCIANELLA, which used to be employed for Orvieto wine and it is nowadays utilized for Armagnac wine and by some big Portuguese rosé and green wine producers;

• ALBEISA, which is employed for Alba (Piedmont) red wines;

• CHIATIGIANA, which has a capacity of 1500 cl and it is destined to substitute the classic flask.

• FLASK, which is a blown glass container, has a spherical shape, and it is covered with interlaced straw, so that it can keep a vertical position. It is employed mostly for Chianti and Tuscan wines, it used to be the symbol of the Italian wine in the world. Nowadays, it is being abandoned almost totally, for both business (the costs for interlacing the straw) and technical (it is difficult to transport) reasons.

Almost for all the bottles it is utilized both the 750 cl type and the 375 cl one (which is called “middle” and the 1500 cl one (called “magnum”).

The color of the glass goes from white to amber, brown, green, from bright to dark tones. Especially wines which are destined to ageing, it is preferable to employ a very dark glass, and recent researches have developed mixtures which allow to obtain an optimal filtering of the light.