Harpers Wine & Spirit Trade News

Uncorking the facts on the bottle weight debate

Published: 15 October, 2025

At 1.2kg, the bottle on the table was heavy enough for it to be hard to tell how much wine was in it. But as chief winemaker Ana María Cumsille explained, the biggest market for Viña Carmen Gold, the Chilean producer’s top cuvée, was China, and consumers there “associate weight with quality”. A few weeks later I related this story to a manager at Ardagh glass in Barnsley as I toured their bottle factory. He joked: “We could get three out of one of those!” – and indeed the bottles coming off the production line in front of us weighed just 400g or less.

Bottle weight update to Hallgarten Eco Standard

Published: 06 June, 2025

Hallgarten & Novum Wines has updated its sustainability guide to include analysis of bottle weight and use of recycled materials in wine bottles.

Accolade Wines becomes signatory of Bottle Weight Accord

Published: 23 January, 2025

The Australian wine giant is among three new signatories to the scheme, as well as South African winery Botanica Wines and Albert Heijin, the Netherland’s largest supermarket group.

Lidl and The Wine Society join Bottle Weight Accord to reduce glass globally

Published: 11 October, 2023

A number of leading wine retailers representing various corners of the globe have just inked an agreement with the shared objective of significantly reducing the weight of 750ml still wine bottles across their extensive product lines.