Central Otago bottle

Only six labels existed in Central Otago until the mid 90's, these were Black Ridge, Chard Farm, Gibbston Valley, Rippon, Taramea and William Hill. After early success it was decided to put the wines into a special shaped bottle that would differentiate the region and help market their distinctive product. The bottle selected was a tall, slender shape that was imported from Germany and known as the Omega bottle. This bottle was used until 1996 and then spasmodically until 2002.

In 1996 an alternative bottle was offered to the group by Newpro Industries. This bottle was called the Italian Breganze and while similar in shape to the Omega bottle had a distictive flanged finish at the mouth. Despite being significantly cheaper than the Omega, the bottle was fraught with problems from the beginning; namely that the bottle was made from very thin glass. Exascerbated by long transport distances, bottles frequently arrived scuffed and/or broken - commonly arriving a day or two before bottling. To overcome the long lead times, Newpro (working with Fulton Hogan) arranged for storage and stocking of the bottles in Alexandra. While this allayed much of the timing and scuffing/broken bottle problems still did not address the breakage problem during bottling.

To overcome the thin glass problem, in 1998 NewPro approached French bottle maker Tourres et Cie to develop a much sturdier bottle. This bottle became known as the "Otago flute" and while a number of producers chose to use the same bottle for both their reds and whites others opted for a more swat "burgundy" shaped bottle for their Pinot Noir and of these most wineries used the flange finished "Graville" bottle from the same producer. In 2000, 1,000,000 Tourres bottles arrived in Central Otago (85% of the market), however this was soon to change as the first stirrings of the screwcap began to ripple throught the industry.

By 2002, with the explosive uptake of screwcaps and the incompatability of the flanged Otago bottle with a screwcap - what was, was no longer, and as rapidly as it started the Central Otago bottle faded into history. While the bottle was distinctive and served its purpose, perhaps more importantly showed the country, and indeed the world, the cohesiveness of the fledgling industry. Small volumes of its distinctive wine was marketed around the world, and in doing so captivated the imaginations of distant consumers and formed the basis of what is now an important Central Otago industry.