Winebits 729: Wine bottles, Eyrie Vineyards, robots

This week’s wine news: Bogle will use lighter glass bottles, plus a tour of the legendary Eyrie Vineyards and robots among the grapes

• Lighter bottles: Bogle, the one-time champion of quality supermarket wine, will reduce its bottle weight by 10 percent, starting next year. Bogle’s bottles were always a bit heavy, given the price of the wine, so it’s good news that it’s cutting down on their weight. Wine Business reports that the change will take place in phases, with the first lighter bottles coming to its being featured in Bogle’s chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon, Essential Red, pinot noir, and merlot. Now, if the company would only stop sweetening the sauvignon blanc. …

• Touring Eyrie: Oregon’s Eyrie Vineyards is one of the great treasures of American wine, and Austin Beeman shows us why in this video, “Walking the Original Vines.” Eyrie’s Jason Lett takes Beeman on a tour of where his father David planted the winery’s first vines and helped change the way we made wine in this country. If you get frustrated and overwhelmed with the way wine is going these days, do what I do — drink a bottle of Eyrie wine. It reminds me what wine can be.

• Winery robots: Because, of course, who doesn’t like robots? Traxx will come in two types — to till vineyards and to spray them. It’s unique because it’s what called high-clearance, that it is taller than the vines. It will undergo field trials in France next year. No word on whether or when it will be available in the U.S.