I spotted an interesting report concerning plastic wine containers. More and more supermarkets are turning glass into plastic and I have written about this before.

Previous wisdom was that wine in plastic lasted 12 months or so, but recent detailed scientific analysis has showed that wine (particularly white) starts to oxidise by the time 6 months has elapsed. This gradually sucks the life out of the wine, and as the year progresses you could end up with a totally different unpalatable drink.

There are lots of mixed messages though. For example from this article earlier in the year -

"We have proved a two year shelf life on a 75cl bottle and we are currently testing an 18.7cl bottle. We believe we will achieve a similar two year shelf life," says Clare Montgomery, sales director at Paul Sapin's UK-based distributor and investment partner Roger Harris Wines.

I am sure they are working hard to improve plastic storage, as illustrated here, but then you end up with exotic chemical coatings which may well be perfectly safe, but sound like the dodgy non stick stuff flaking off my frying pan at home.

All very unappetising and over complex when compared to glass. I don't want my wine cosying up to a wall of chemical compounds even if scientists 'currently' think they are inert. Call me conservative, but glass has proven the test of time.

So this new report on the lackluster PET wine packaging could be bad news for the supermarkets. I think more research is required, but it is not looking promising.

From my perspective plastic bottles/boxes are a short term purchase anyway. I do not know anyone who hives them away in a cellar for months on end before drinking, so longevity is not a huge problem, providing the containers have an accurate best before date. The logic is that I would never consider storing plastic bottles full of soft drinks for over a year, so my gut feeling would be the same for wine. I normally only have a handful of glass bottles that are granted the dubious honour of remaining in my excuse for a wine cellar for more than six months. I don't think the box wines I may have bought in the past ever left the kitchen before being drained.

For plastic, the most important date is the packaging date. If the wine had been sitting around in storage for a month or two before reaching the shelves then that would shorten the already brief drinking window even more, and you need to be fully aware of this. Don't assume you automatically have say six months to drink it in, always check the best before date.

So what can I tell you about the 'glass bottled' wine I recently ordered (look at the previous post). Well not a great deal, as on the night of the party the hog roast demanded draught bitter and that is what I stuck with, along with the majority of the guests. So I am left with around 30+ bottles of wine to drink over the coming months. I do know that the rose was popular, particularly the Cuvee des Amandiers Rose 2009 Vin de Pays d'Oc. I will review some of the other bottles as and when I try them. They were on sale or return, but I am much more interested in drinking them myself than letting Majestic grab them back.

Have your say

Name (optional):
Email (optional):
Website (optional):
Message: