Bocksbeutel

The Bocksbeutel is a traditional, squat, flask-shaped bottle used with immense pride among the winegrowers of Germany’s Franken region. Similarly shaped wine bottles (usually the Cantil) have lengthy histories elsewhere in Europe and far-off places like Chile, but nowhere else is it tied to a region’s identity as in Franken. Flagon-shaped clay wine bottles were around in the middle ages, and glass versions were in use by 1685. The Franconians have made numerous attempts to claim exclusivity over the Bocksbeutel. In 1984, a European Court decided that the Bocksbeutel could not be Franken’s exclusive property. In 1999, the Bocksbeutel was granted PDO status by the European Commission, giving Franconian wine producers protective rights over the Bocksbeutel (exceptions were made for Baden districts of Tauberfranken and four villages in Ortenau which made a historical claim to the bottle). In 2001, Franconian producers built a 35-meter-high Bocksbeutel hot air balloon to protest a European Union initiative that would have made it available to all European wine producers. An article from The Guardian reporting on the protest contains a hilarious quote from Johannes Lay, head of the Franconian winegrowers’ association at the time, “When people see the goat’s scrotum flying across Europe - that should say it all.” Whether its name comes from “ram’s scrotum,” which is supposed to be of similar shape, or if it came from a Booksbüdel, which would have been a small sack used to carry prayer or songbooks, is a bit of wine lore. The short-necked, pot-bellied but flattened shape derives from field bottles that pre-date the middle ages and were a practical and common shape for transport. A new shape was introduced by star designer Peter Schmidt from Hamburg in 2015, giving the Bocksbeutel a modern refresh with sleeker lines and a cleaner look. The new design is not mandatory but protected for Franken's use only, and I can see that it's been widely adopted by many Franken producers. It’s a well-used wine merchant complaint that the Bocksbeutel can’t be easily stacked or binned, and many find the shape old-fashioned and unappealing. I, for one, find the Bockbeutel charming (Bockbeutel splits and magnums are especially alluring), and I agree with Weingut Hans Wirsching’s position, “For us, the Bocksbeutel embodies tradition, uniqueness, and home.”