Originally published on January 30, 2015 by Andy Perdue, former writer of The Grapevine 

When staring at the wine wall of your favorite wine store, you may start to wonder why the bottles have different shapes and whether this is by design. 

Generally speaking, there are four types of wine bottles, each of which contains a different type of wine from a specific area of ​​the Old World. 

Bordeaux: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon are traditionally used in the Bordeaux region of France. This wine bottle is famous for its high shoulders and narrow profile. You may also notice that wines from Italy and Portugal use this type of bottle. 

Burgundy/Rhone: The bottom of these bottles is wider than the Bordeaux bottles, and the shoulders are slanted. This is a tradition in France’s Burgundy and Rhone Valley regions, so you can almost always find Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Syrah and Viognier in Burgundy/Rhone bottles. 

Sparkling wine: The shape of sparkling wine bottles is similar to Burgundy/Rhone wine bottles, but they are thicker to maintain their integrity, with all bubbles bearing 90 pounds of pressure per square inch. The indentation on the bottom-known as the "punt"-is important to prevent the bottle from bursting (it was undoubtedly discovered through trial and error in champagne). 

Hawke: These tall and narrow bottles are common in Alsace in Germany and France. They usually hold Riesling and Jade syrup. 

In most cases, wineries insist on using traditional bottle shapes to hold wine, so that they can be found on crowded shelves more easily. However, it is not uncommon to find Pinot Noir occasionally in a Bordeaux-shaped bottle. In fact, Dick Erath put one of his early Oregon Pinot Noirs in a tall hock bottle, allegedly because it was cheaper. 

The bottles come in various colors, but most red wines are packed in brown or dark green glasses to protect the wine from sun damage. Many white wines use clear glass, especially sweet wines, including Sauternes. The rosé wine is packed in a transparent glass bottle to show off its beautiful pink color. Sparkling wine is usually in a green glass. Blue glass is occasionally found in the northwest, usually with Riesling or Muscat. 

Sometimes, you will see other shapes. For example, an Italian restaurant might put cheap Chianti in a straw-covered bottle called "fiasco." Expensive dessert wines, especially ice wine from British Columbia, are packed in tall bottles with half the normal volume. I have also seen novel bottles shaped like violin, fish or even skull. 

You may notice that some wine bottles are heavier than others. A typical full bottle of wine weighs about 3 pounds, but can exceed 4 pounds. This is usually a marketing strategy that leads you to believe that heavy bottles are better and therefore should be more expensive. In recent years, lighter bottles have been used, which reduces the carbon footprint of the winery and greatly saves transportation costs. 

The views expressed in the reader's comments only represent the views of the author and do not reflect the views of the Seattle Times.