What Message Can Be Seen from the Wine Packaging?

 Although the packaging of modern wines, regardless of their grades, is becoming more and more exquisite, we can still see some information about the quality of the wine from the details of the outer packaging of the wine bottle.

Shrinkwrap Seal

The shrink wrap is the outer seal of the bottle, which is a coat that seals the wine cork and the bottle opening. The most important shrink wrap materials on the market are plastic, aluminum foil, and wax seal. Some are even double-layered plastic and aluminum foil, or double-layer aluminum foil. Basically, when we see the aluminum foil and wax-sealed wine caps, we can infer that this wine is better than plastic wine caps at least in terms of ageing. Generally speaking, plastic wine caps are common in some entry-level wines. In France, they are table wine or regional wines. So when everyone sees the wine covered with a plastic wine cap, you can probably judge that this is a more basic wine that is suitable for drinking now and should not be kept for long. Generally, the drinking period of this kind of wine is 2-3 years. If you see more than this period, it is very likely that the wine has lost its freshness and the drinking period has passed.

Wine Corks

Regardless of the small wine corks, it actually revealed a lot of information. Today's wine corks are much richer than in the past, such as plastic corks, wooden corks, and metal screw corks. Each of these wine corks has its own advantages, so the winery will choose the right wine stopper according to the needs of different varieties and ageing.

Plastic stopper corks

It is airtight and inexpensive. This kind of stopper is generally suitable for wines that do not need to be aged and can be drunk fresh.

Metal screw stoppers

Such plugs are increasingly appearing on the market. Its advantage is that it does not have a cork smell, and it isolates oxygen and delays the oxidation period; but while isolating the air, the wine cannot breathe. In some new world countries, such as New Zealand and Australia, more and more wines are also using screw plugs.

Wooden Corks

Wooden corks are widely used traditional wine stoppers. There are also many types of wooden corks. For example, polymer corks are made by compressing oak chips; micro-particle corks are made by crushing cork particles and then gluing them together. These corks are characterized by high density and low price. They are also suitable for some basic wines suitable for fresh drinking.

The most traditional is the original cork, which has a very wide range of applications. Generally speaking, the grain on the oak cork can be used to judge the quality of the cork and infer the quality of the wine. Generally, the texture is moderately soft and hard, with less wood eyes, and belongs to high-quality oak plugs. And its length is also exquisite. It is generally expected that the wine that can be aged for a long time will choose a longer cork.

Wine labels

The wine label is the most intuitive part of the wine information. The production area, grade, vintage, and winery name shown on the wine label can all reflect the grade of the wine. For some wine-producing countries with meticulous grading systems and meticulous labeling of production areas, such as France and Italy, people can even guess the approximate price from the wine label.