In a transparent bottle, you will more easily see the color of the wine you are drinking. However, you should favor the darker ones for better tasting.
Wine is a drink dear to the hearts of the French. You still have to choose it carefully to enjoy it. If you are not a great connoisseur, it is always difficult to choose the right bottle on the shelves or at the wine merchant. That said, there are some tips that can narrow down the range of possibilities. You can first look at the appellation: for example, the terms “cru” and “grand cru” indicate classified wines. The price is also a good indicator, even if good bottles fortunately exist for less than 10 euros. However, there is a small detail that few people pay attention to and which nevertheless guarantees better tasting.
We should, in fact, pay more attention to the color of the bottle. Green or dark containers, which are very often found for wine, would be favored over light and transparent bottles, according to Susie Barry, an expert in the field who spoke with The Times. Transparent bottles allow sunlight to reach the wine more easily. Thus, transparency does not prevent UV rays or artificial lighting from altering the wine. This will, in fact, cause the amino acids to react and form sulfur compounds. These can then spread an unpleasant odor.
White wine and rosé are more affected by the use of transparent bottles. In 2022, a study from the University of Trento previously revealed that bottles of Chardonnay, for example, showed a significant increase in the content of heptan-1-ol, a colorless chemical that emits a foul odor, when hit with UV rays. “These stinky compounds appear to be responsible for the bad taste of cooked cabbage and sometimes form in wine exposed to a light source,” the researchers described in the study. Exposed to the sun for a week, the wine in the transparent bottles also lost taste: 10 to 30% of the compounds which gave the floral and fruity notes as well as 30 to 70% of the compounds responsible for the woody notes had disappeared. At the same time, wines stored in green or dark bottles did not emit an unpleasant odor and retained their flavors for 50 days.
This poses a real problem for producers because clear bottles allow them to highlight the color of their product. “What type of wine tends to be bottled in transparent glass? The most vulnerable wines, of course,” says Susie Barry. It is therefore strongly recommended to store the wine in a cool but also rather dark place. The best solution would even be to buy dark green or amber bottles directly so as not to take any risks.