Is this the end of the wine bottle?

Picture the world before the invention of the bottle: if you wanted a nice glass of claret at home, you’d have to send a boy round to the tavern to fill up a jug — unless you were rich enough to have a whole barrel in your cellar. Around 1630, a new tougher glass was invented in England which, when combined with the cork, meant that wine could be transported and stored safely and inertly. We owe the amazing variety of wine available to us at the touch of a button to this invention.

What’s peculiar is how little has changed in 400 years. For most of us, buying wine still means buying a bottle. This is bananas, because most wine is drunk within hours of being purchased, and the glass bottle then discarded. It’s not as if there aren’t alternatives. In wine producing countries, there’s more of a dividing line between wine that you might keep — which comes in bottles — and everyday stuff for boozing.