Stainless steel vats, terracotta amphorae, and other concrete eggs: in recent years, new containers have appeared in the cellars.
This latest arrival on the market, marketed by the Michael Paetzold company for only two years under the Wineglobe brand, has already won over some 500 winegrowers in the world in search of excellence.
As far as Bordeaux, in the south-west of France, where aging is traditionally done in oak barrels.
"We are not going to do without the barrels that are part of our DNA!", warns Anthony Gariador, cellar master of this Grand Cru Classé de Graves in the AOC Pessac-Léognan, in red and white.
"But we had to try. A great wine is a set of small details that make the difference in the mouth.
The Wineglobes will allow us to bring complexity, an additional nuance to the wine", hopes this professional who plans to multiply "blind tastings" and "aroma measurements".
A "Wineglobe" glass vat in the cellars of Château Olivier, on November 3, 2022 in Léognan, in Bordeaux ROMAIN PERROCHEAU AFP
During this test phase, the wine aged in eight of these 220-litre Pyrex vats - the equivalent of a barrel - revealing its bronze color, could integrate that aged in barrels during the final blend.
Wine without artifice
"Ideal container" for white wines, the Wineglobe "brings length, persistent freshness in the mouth and 50% more aromas", assures Marie Paetzold, general manager of this entity of the company Michael Paetzold, named after her father, inventor of advanced technologies for oenological work in the vat room.
This SME with 30 active patents embarked on design for Burgundy winegrowers who were looking for a larger and less fragile glass container than the demijohns in which they raise or age their end-of-barrel wine.
"The total neutrality of the glass, tight in oxygen, allows the full expression of the grape, without artifice and without mask", according to Marie Paetzold, present in the middle of coopers at the Vinitech show in Bordeaux, from Tuesday to Thursday.
Anthony Gariador, cellar master, and Marie Paetzold, next to a Wineglobe glass tank in the cellars of Château Olivier, on November 3, 2022 in Léognan, in Bordeaux ROMAIN PERROCHEAU AFP
"We are in the purity of the terroir of the plot. It is as if in the kitchen you were tasting exceptional meat, without salt, without pepper, the wood being just the extra spice", explains Frédéric Savart, creator of champagnes south of Reims (north-east).
Stéphane Derenoncourt, from the Domaine de l'A near Castillon-la-Bataille, near Bordeaux, evokes "a rather brilliant experimental land", "closer to the original qualities of the grape".
For the red, the aging of which involves oxygen passing through the pores of the wood, its use is more complementary during blending, even if some try to age it 100% in glass, such as Gérard Courrèges, from Domaine Vaccelli in Corsica.
Other advantages reported: its perfect hygiene and the reduction in the use of sulfur dioxide, used for its antioxidant and antiseptic properties.
Usable "for life"
And, in the face of global warming, which favors vintages laden with sugar and lacking in acidity, glass can become a complementary tool.
Like at Domaine Christophe Perrot-Minot, in the Côte de Nuits in Burgundy, where Wineglobes are used to continue aging wine aged in barrels beforehand, instead of bottling it prematurely.
"The wine retains all its freshness as well as its sharpness without showing any sign of fatigue," says cellar master Jérôme Gay, who uses around fifty of them and plans to continue the acquisition.
"We won't go back."
Anthony Gariador, cellar master, pours wine into a glass tank at Château Olivier, on November 3, 2022 in Léognan, in Bordeaux ROMAIN PERROCHEAU AFP
More expensive to buy - 4,000 euros against 1,000 for an oak barrel - the wineglobe can be used "for life" when the wood must be changed every 3 years in large castles.
Faced with growing demand, particularly from countries in the southern hemisphere, the SME hopes to market its own Wineglobes in 2023, so far mouth-blown in a central European glassworks.
At its headquarters in Cadaujac, near Bordeaux, it built a furnace capable of producing four models of vats, including larger ones of 440 litres, a new trend in cooperage.
© 2022 AFP