Wine Bottle - Colours

Colours

The traditional colours used for wine bottles are:

• Bordeaux: dark green for reds, light green for dry whites, clear for sweet whites.
• Burgundy and the Rhone: dark green.
• Mosel and Alsace: dark to medium green, although some producers have traditionally used amber.
• Rhine: amber, although some producers have traditionally used green.
• Champagne: Usually dark to medium green. Rosé champagnes are usually a colorless or green.

Clear colourless bottles have recently become popular with white wine producers in many countries, including Greece, Canada and New Zealand. Dark-coloured bottles are most commonly used for red wines, but many white wines also still come in dark green bottles. The main reason for using coloured or tinted glass is that natural sunlight can break down desirable antioxidants such as vitamin c and tannins in a wine over time, which impacts storability and can cause a wine to prematurely oxidise. Dark glass can prevent oxidation and increase storage life. It is therefore mostly ready-to-drink white wines with a short anticipated storage lifespan which are bottled in clear colourless bottles.