By Rose Murray Brown MW   Published in The Scotsman 1 March 2025

“Wine should not be sold in clear glass bottles – it is stupid packaging in an era of smart tech”. That was the verdict of wine expert Peter Richards MW at a webinar about lightstrike.

Lightstrike (known as gout de lumiere by the French) is a major issue in the wine world and has been known about for some time.  It is a term used to describe the damaging effects of light at short wavelengths on wine – particularly UVA and blue lights.  According to Richards, research has shown it can be 300 times worse in clear colourless glass bottles in comparison to amber (which is the best colour to use) or dark green bottles.

What happens is that the light triggers reactions in wine and damages certain acids, like amino acid.  It can mute the aromas, strip wine’s character and in the worst cases wines develop boiled cabbage or garlic aromas; it can also reduce colour intensity.  It is a well-recognised issue in the drinks industry – it also affects beer and milk – that is why so many beers are bottled in darker amber glass.

The ‘lightstrike’ chemical change in the wine can happen within just seven days of light exposure, when 10-30% of a wine’s terpenes could be destroyed.  So all the winemakers hard work goes to waste and the wine lover does not experience the wine at its best.

“If a wine is tainted by light it is irreversible”, explained Richards.  As he says ‘more light, more pain’ – and at the end of the day it’s the customer who is getting the raw deal here.  He accused the wine industry of trying to hide the problem which really needs to be known about and dealt with – perhaps by banning clear glass by law.

Lightstrike affects all wines, but most vulnerable are white, rose and sparkling wines.  According to Richards, sparkling wine in clear glass is particularly susceptible.

English sparkling wine producer Nyetimber’s winemaker Brad Greatrix has been trying to highlight the problem for several years; back in 2009 Nyetimber moved from using light green to dark bottles for all their sparkling wines and apparently Greatrix would never buy any wine in clear colourless bottles.

Champagne expert Tom Stevenson of CSWWC believes that the clear bottle is ‘marketing madness’ and fundamentally a quality control issue.  In Champagne cellars they use sodium lighting to avoid lightstrike during maturation.  Some Champagne houses have reacted by wrapping bottles in golden UV- resistant cellophane at point of sale (as in Louis Roederer’s Cristal see below) or a paper skin/shell (as in Ruinart see below) – but this just adds to the packaging.

Roses are almost always sold in clear bottles, as people seem to be incapable of buying rose without seeing the colour.  According to rose expert Liz Gabay MW: “about one third of the roses I taste are affected by lightstrike”.  She believes “it is a deep-rooted problem which is not always widely understood by producers themselves”; some rose producers she has talked to think that just filtering a wine will mean it is protected – which is obviously not the case, so there is work to be done explaining the problem to some producers too.

Lightstrike is widely known about, yet retailers and supermarket wine buyers are unwilling to switch from clear glass as it is apparently hard to change existing customer mentality.  Yet with a bit of education wine lovers quickly understood that using screwcaps over cork did not affect quality – and the same with lighter-weight v heavy-weight bottles.  “No supermarket wants to be the first to refuse to sell wine in clear bottles.  In fact, the problem seems to be getting worse and we are seeing more wines bottled in clear glass”, says Richards.

Switching to an alternative packaging is another answer.  Colourless PET bottles have built-in UV absorbers and Bag-in-box wines are protected in their pouch by cardboard – but the glass bottle is imbedded into our wine culture and it will take years to shift mentality.  So next time you reach for a bottle – choose a darker glass bottle to ensure you are getting the best taste in your wine.

 

 

WINES OF THE WEEK (not in clear bottles!)

WHITE:

Robertson, South Africa: EXCELSOIR CALCRETE CHARDONNAY 2024

£15.99 Laithwaites

Robertson’s maritime deposits in its limestone gives a zippy freshness and beautifully pure crystalline fruit character to this unoaked Chardonnay, made by the talented de Wet family.

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RED

Pathos, Cyprus: MAKAROUNAS MARATHEFTIKO 2021

£25 The Wine Society

Intriguing Cypriot red with delicious savoury olivey flavours, tannin texture but not grip with a distinct salty edge made from Maratheftiko grape which means ‘theft’ as it cannot self-pollinate, so is co-planted with other grapes to survive.

Join Rose’s Spring 2025 wine tasting series www.rosemurraybrown.com