Clear bottles give wine an aroma of wet dog

Shoppers in the dark as Masters say light exposure destroys aroma in white, rosé and sparkling ranges

DRINKERS should avoid buying white or rosé wine in clear glass bottles or risk a smell like “boiled cabbage and wet dog”, experts have warned.

Susie Barry and Peter Richards, a married couple who are Masters of Wine and have appeared on BBC One’s

Saturday Kitchen, said consumers should bottle wine in darker glass to avoid the effects of “light strike”.

Light exposure can destroy aroma compounds and make white, rosé and sparkling wine smell bad, Ms Barry said.

The pair – two of just 417 equivalent authorities worldwide – say the darker and more opaque bottles traditionally used for red wine are better for preserving flavour. On their Wine Blast podcast, Ms Barry said that in the most extreme cases of light strike “your wine can seriously end up smelling like boiled cabbage, or drains, or wet dog”.

She said opting for black or dark amber bottles was best as they block out most of the light, but that supermarkets rarely sell lighter wines in dark bottles.

“The only proper solution is to buy wine exclusively in dark or protective bottles or packaging.”

Mr Richards said: “We went into two popular UK supermarkets, at either end of the price and demographic spectrum, and we couldn’t find a single bottle of still rosé wine that wasn’t in a clear, colourless glass bottle.”

He added: “A significant proportion of the white wines were also in clear glass bottles, and also quite a few sparkling wines, too.”

In 2022, Italian researchers found that within seven days of storing white wine in glass bottles the amount of terpenes, compounds which add floral and fruity notes such as lilac and blueberry to a wine, had diminished by up to 30 per cent, while norisoprenoids, which are responsible for complex woody notes, declined by 70 per cent.

The same wines kept in dark bottles for 50 days showed no deterioration, the researchers found.

Mr Richards said: “Marketeers say people want to see the wine before they buy it, particularly with rosé because it’s bright and pretty, but this desire is contributing to its lack of quality.”

Ms Barry added: “You could easily have those wines in dark glass bottles, or bag-in-boxes, or cans, frankly, maybe with a picture of the wine colour.”

The effects of light strike are not reversible, the couple added, calling the issue “daylight robbery” because of the diminished quality product people can end up paying for.

Ms Barry said the scale of the problem is likely far greater than “any other wine taint, and yet we don’t really talk about it”.