This goes back to 1999!
Why do some wine bottles have indented bottoms?
While writing a feature about trends in wine packaging, I spoke to a reliable source who is president of a bottle company and extremely knowledgeable about bottle design. This question came up as an aside. Her response was that the punt goes back to the earliest days of commercial wine packaging, when all the bottles were hand blown, rather than formed in molds. The punt (related to the French word for point) was formed by the device that held the bottles while they were being blown. She added that the punt remains more practical because cheaper, flat-bottomed bottles may have a tendency to tip over, whereas the indentation gives stability.
March 5, 1999
Dear Cecil:
Why do some bottles of wine and champagne have cone-shaped bottoms?
— Scottsman3, via AOL
Dear Scott:
The indented bottom, called a punt, is useful in the traditional method of making sparkling wines, known as riddling or remuage. The bottles are placed in special racks with the top of one nestled into the punt of the next, then gradually tipped upside down. This causes sediment to settle into the neck of the bottle, from which it’s eventually removed. In still (nonsparkling) wines, the punt serves the same purpose as the indented bottoms of tavern beer steins–it makes you think you’re getting a lot more than you are.
Bottles with the indentation have more glass in the base because of the shape, thus making it heavier. Of course, you could achieve the same thing more effieciently by making flat-bottomed bottles with a thicker base…
I have heard multiple conflicting reasons for the concave bottom of wine bottles in many places, wine magazines, books, documentaries, people who are in the bottling business, etc.
The ones I have heard of:
Caused by bottlemaking process (either hand or early machines)
Easier to stack bottles for remuage
Easier for server to hold bottle correctly while pouring
Prevents bottles from exploding since hemisphere is stronger than flat bottom
Deceptive packaging (This is the least likely, in my opinion, since wine bottle sizes are standard)
That’s the way it’s always been done.
My personal best educated guess is that it’s a lot of #6/#1, with a bit of #4 for sparkling wines.
I doubt it’s because of remuage, because there’s no real advantage to it – the bottles are in a rack, there’s no need for additional stability, and I don’t know why you would store multiple bottles touching each other end-to-end. I think #3 is probably a side benefit discovered later.
As for fooling the customer, that seems unlikely, since that shape has been in use for a lot longer than mass marketing, and because wine bottle sizes are fairly standardized, with catchy names.
I’ve been purchasing wine packaging for the past ten years. I’d love to know who you spoke to, as it’s quite possible I know her. I’d be very interested in reading your feature as well.
From what I’ve learned from some of the most knowledgeable folks in the business, there really wasn’t such a thing as ‘commercial wine packaging’ before the English began making wine bottles in wooden moulds in the mid 17th century or so. Wine and glass were sold individual of one another and most folks reused their bottles, which didn’t look much like the typical burgundy, claret, or hock moulds you see today.
Cork also has that invention and subsequent glass manufacturing advances to thank for its place in commercial wine packaging as we know it.
I’m kind of surprised at the tipping over statement, especially from someone in the glass industry. I’ve never heard this before and I’ve never found it to be true. The punt (aka the kick or a kick-up) does stabilize the base of the bottle in terms of pressure, which is why it is necessary in sparkling wine bottles. But for still wines, it’s purely aesthetic in today’s world.
And to fool the customer is just silly. Or, maybe frightening. Wine bottles are standardized. The tall skinny bottle next to the short fat one holds the exact same amount and says so, either on the label or blown into bottle (TTB regulation in the US, anyway.) 750ml, assuming we’re talking about an average bottle of wine and not a magnum or a split, etc.
It occurs to me that, though I’ve seen many flat-bottomed glass flasks, mugs, pans, beakers, and tumblers, in 61 years I’ve never seen a glass jar or bottle with a truly flat bottom. They don’t all have the extreme punts of certain wine bottles, but they’re all concave on the outside and convex on the inside.
Sure, but the OP isn’t talking about concave bottoms, they are talking about punts.
You can see in the diagram of this bottle, it has a slightly concave bottom. But it has no punt. It’s a ‘flat bottom’ mould in the industry. This bottle obviously has a punt. Actually, this bottle has the most extreme punt I’ve come across. It’s a very elegant, beautiful (and expensive) bottle.
The first bottle is also lighter and taller than the second. By the OP’s logic, it should be toppling over itself, but I can tell you from experience, it doesn’t do that. Not empty on a high speed bottling line, and not filled and out on the market.
Stupid thing for me to have said. I had a bottle of still red last night that had something of a punt, although perhaps not as pronounced as they are typically in bottles for sparkling wine.
I’d be very interested in reading your feature as well.