Weighty bottles

A post on Jancis Robinson’s, MW, Purple Pages brings up the question of heavy wine bottles. The wine pictured to the right is one of the worst offenders. To pour this at the restaurant, in order to ensure I was not going to drop it, I had to pick it up with two hands. Ha ha, guys said, that’s because you’re a girl. Ha ha, I’d joke, those Argentinians are so macho they need a big bottle.

But I had thought of this before, when one of the producers out here, Lieb Family Cellars, picked out the bottles for their wines, big heavy bottles. Not as bad as the Tikal, but bigger than the average bottle. Their salesman mentioned how much heavier they are to carry.

And to ship I thought. Why would Mark Lieb want to do that? It’s kind of like a four rail fence. Most of the time three rails will do, but four shows you’ve got the money to spend. Big bottles are expensive and show the producer’s got the scratch.