Form Over Function: Why Some Wineries Are Rethinking the Shape of the Bottle

Picture a wine bottle. What do you imagine? Odds are, you’re seeing something relatively tall and cylindrical, with a narrow neck at the top. Maybe you are visualizing one of the more classically known shapes: the gently-sloping Burgundy bottle or the squared-off Bordeaux bottle. Hell, maybe you’re picturing a Riesling bottle for some reason. There are a lot of reasons a winery might choose to use one of these extremely widespread bottle shapes for their wines. They’re not just proven over centuries of use, but are instantly recognizable to wine drinkers of all types.