Wine is an unusual luxury. Unless it has bubbles or is fortified, even when it costs over $100, it usually comes without any packaging beyond the bottle. Wine merchants use tissue paper to protect a Grand Cru Burgundy or Grand Cru Classé before they put the bottle in their branded carrier bag. Generous wine lovers who want to offer a fine German Riesling or Brunello as a present, are often given the opportunity to pay a little extra for a gift bag.
Compare this treatment with the beautifully-designed boxes routinely produced by producers of Champagne and other sparkling wines, or port and sherry. Or of course chocolates or scent.
Duty Free exceptions
There are exceptions of course. Shoppers in airport duty free outlets will have noticed the occasional bottles in gift boxes among their naked neighbours. More specifically, anyone passing through Australian airports will have seen an array of gift boxes – created for the many Chinese passengers who pass through these outlets daily.
One Bordeaux chateau that has decided to break ranks is Phélan Ségur in St Estephe. Over the next few weeks, buyers will be able to gift one of its $50 bottles in a special Valentine’s Day box, or one with a green clover design for St Patrick’s Day to mark the chateau’s historic links with Ireland.
Marketers and recipients of these bottles will probably applaud the move, while others question the environmental costs of extra packaging they – like most other still wine producers - consider unnecessary.
