The following weekends, the containers are generally full and the bottles of wine accumulate at their feet. One thing is clear: they are mostly made of green glass.
Could it be a coquetry of the winegrowers? Because all wines are not in the same boat. We sometimes find amber but also colorless glass.
This coloring is explained by the fragility of the wine. Reputed to be the most complex food in the world, it is also one of the most sensitive, especially to light. UV rays are known to have deleterious effects. They will create a chemical reaction and cause a degradation of its flavor but also of its aromas.
It only takes about fifteen minutes in full sun for a wine to develop what connoisseurs call “the taste of light”. And if we can trust their opinion, there is nothing attractive: in fact the wine will develop an odor of sulfur, cauliflower, even garlic butter.
In order to protect it from these mild effects, the winegrowers bottle their fermented grape juice in tinted glass bottles. Green and amber are the most common colors. They provide effective protection against UV rays.
This is the case with champagne. The luxurious drink is fragile and sells in green bottles. But blanc de blanc, a particularly trendy 100% chardonnay champagne, is produced in colorless containers. To support its image of purity and elegance, the winegrowers play with transparency. Marketing therefore takes precedence over conservation. Everything is still packaged either in a cardboard case or in a sheet of silk.
Colorless glass is also used for bottles of rosés and certain whites. This means that they are to be drunk young, and especially quickly. In addition, we know that the color of the rosé color is decisive in the act of purchase, the lighter ones being very popular.