How The Glass Bottle is Wrecking Your Wine (before you buy it)

Written by Madeline Puckette

If you love to drink rosé, white, and sparkling wine you need to read this.

Sparkling Wine Bottle Colors
Studies show that clear glass bottles don’t protect against light strike but amber bottles do.

Clear wine bottles have been shown to cause a stinky, smelling wine fault that smells like wet wool, old garlic or dirty shower drains. The fault, called dimethyldisulphide (DMDS ) or light-strike, occurs when the wine is exposed to light (both artificial and sunlight) for as little as 60 minutes. This means all those beautiful store displays of clear glass bottles of rosé, sparkling and white wine have a higher potential of being faulty.

The most frequent cases of light strike have been observed in sparkling wines. For this reason, the Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championship (CSWWC ) is encouraging sparkling wine producers to restrict the usage of clear bottles.

Here are some tips on what you can do to increase the likeliness of NOT getting a faulty wine:

  • Avoid bottles stored directly under light or displayed in the window
  • Opt for wines in green-colored (better) or amber-colored (best) bottles
  • Go for sparkling wines wrapped in gold colored plastic (if bottle is clear)
  • Yet another reason to buy wine by the case

Amber and Gold plastic wrap on sparkling wine bottles helps
Gold and amber-colored plastic wrappers are not just for looks, they’re designed to protect clear bottles from damage.

Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more wine producers wrapping their wines in protective plastic or opting for colored glass bottles.

Sources

  • Tom Stevenson at CSWWC
  • Check out this great DIY study on green vs. amber bottles on Wired

Written byMadeline Puckette

James Beard Award-winning author and Wine Communicator of the Year. I co-founded Wine Folly to help people learn about wine. @WineFolly