Don’t judge a book by its cover.
"Don't judge a book by its cover."
You've heard that before right? Well, do you judge a book by its cover? We all do it! We are attracted to what’s visually appealing and what speaks to us. Imagine this, you're at the store to purchase wine and they are out of your favorite, shoot! You’re not sure which wine to take a chance on. There are many things that go into wine packaging that we don’t think of because, really we don’t have to but it can be helpful when picking out a wine. We’ll go over some other things you can look for to help make it a more successful purchase. Before discussing those and how they affect the cost of a wine, let’s first look at the Wine Bottle Anatomy…
Starting at the top, the closure. Some of the most commonly used are a screw cap, synthetic cork, agglomerated cork and natural cork. Many think that the screw cap means it’s a cheap wine, which is not always true. Two reasons a winery would use a screw cap is that the wine is ready to drink now and they don’t want it to age (by oxygen getting into the bottle) or saving money because it is a cheapest capsule to use. Synthetic corks were a fad in 2014 as an alternative to the cork to avoid TCA, a bacteria that can be found in natural corks and spoil wine. Personally I’m not a fan of these closures but they are cheaper than natural cork. Agglomerated cork is, in laments terms, pieces of cork adhered together. These are typically used when a wine should be consumed in 6 months or because they don’t want to use a screw cap but want a cheaper option than natural cork. See what I’m getting at? Natural corks are the most expensive closure. Therefore, if you see that the bottle of wine you’re considering to buy has a natural cork, it most likely is a decent bottle of wine. There’s more! Did you know corks even come in two sizes? one inch or two inch in length. This you usually don’t know until you open the wine and the wine most likely is $65 or more in price because the length of the cork doesn’t do any benefits to the wine, it’s just for brownie points. If you want to learn more about corks and how they compare to the screw cap, here is a great article from the Wine Folly.
You’re probably thinking, you can’t always see the closure. Now what? The thing that is covering the closure is called the capsule. Some wines won’t have one at all, which is usually for aesthetics or they have something printed on the cork that they want the consumer to see at first glance. Exploring costs of the wine capsule going from cheapest to the most expensive are: the capsule (some call it a foil) with nothing on it, an embossed or stamped capsule with a logo or icon on it, or a wax top. The wax doesn’t do anything different than the capsule does (keeping less oxygen from entering the bottle) but it looks more fancy and costs more as you have to hand dip the wine bottle. Most likely if the wine has a wax top, it will cost more but won’t tell you if the wine is better or not.
Next, let’s talk about the label. The few things that affect cost in printing wine labels are the quality of the paper and if it has any embellishments. Paper can come in various weights and quality, the thicker it is, most likely it’s more expensive. An example of an embellishment on a label would be an emboss (stamping) or foil which comes in various colors but you're probably most familiar with gold or silver foil. These two embellishments can make printing costs go up significantly.
The last thing you can look at is the glass. You can tell if it’s a more expensive bottle by its weight and the depth of the punt. It’s arguable but with my experience, being in the wine industry for 10 years, the deeper the punt, the more expensive the glass is and therefore the wine must be better, right? You tell me, next time you’re at the store, try out these tips and see if it helps you pick out the bottle of wine.
Are there any wines you can think of that you have tried based on just choosing it because you liked the label?
