The Democratization of wine

Wine must be one of the most conservative of all consumer products. Believe it or not, it was roughly in 800 BCE, that the Phoenicians first decided to store wine in glass. The Romans were the first to use cork. That was a long time ago. Three hundred years ago the idea of putting wine in a glass bottle became in vogue. In time, the bottle shape evolved to the cylindrical shape we know today. Yet here we are in the 21st century, and we are still selling wine in glass, which is heavy, and we are still demanding the customer buy five glasses in one go, the contents of a 750 ml. bottle. In these environmental caring days, it should be understood that most of the carbon footprint of wine stems from the production, packaging and transport of this glass. Furthermore we are still stoppering a bottle with a bit of tree bark as we have done for centuries. The developments over the last 30 years, has been unbelievable. The technology in the vineyard and winery is a different world from what the grandparents of today’s winemakers were used to. Yet in the packaging of wine, we are in a kind of time warp.