Bye, Bye Bocksbeutel

Red Baron was shocked when he read in the Badische Zeitung that the good old Bocksbeutel bottle would change shape. So far, according to Wikipedia, the Bocksbeutel is a type of wine bottle shaped like a flattened ellipsoid, or, in uncovering its original meaning, like a billy goat's scrotum.

Traditional Bockbeutel bottle (©Wikipedia)

In Europe, white wine is increasingly bottled with screw caps. While traditional wine drinkers still swear by the traditional cork, they are sometimes annoyingly confronted with a wine that has a corky taste. The screw cap for white wine is a boon for vintners, wine merchants, sommeliers, and consumers. So when the Franconian vintners had to change the rim of the Bocksbeutel anyway, why not change its form simultaneously?

It was not an inhabitant of Franconia but Hamburg's star designer, Peter Schmidt, who convinced the president of the Bavarian State Institute for Viticulture, Hermann Kolesch, to change the dotty image of the Bocksbeutel, making the bottle round, sedate, and a little dusty. 

Up to now, Hamburgers have been knowledgeable about the shapes of beer and rum bottles, although, with climate change, they may grow Sylvaner south of Hamburg on the slopes of the Harburger Berge by 2050.

The new "Bocksbeutel" bottle (©dpa)

I must admit that Professor Schmidt was born in Bayreuth, Franconia, where beer is the favorite drink. So far, he has been famous for designing flacons for perfumes. 

Now we are faced with an elegant designer bottle of an edged shape, but according to my taste, somewhat sterile, for it no longer has the faintest resemblance to a ram's appendage. Are we still allowed to call the new bottle a Bocksbeutel? Red Baron has no high hopes, humming the Sinatra tune:

Stead of feelin' sad, just remember that ram.
Oops, there goes another ... piece of German tradition.

Nostalgia: The bulbous bottle over Würzburg

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