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By Carol Matlack in Paris

Now: Beaujolais Plastique

Wine snobs now have another reason to turn up their noses at Beaujolais Nouveau, the newly pressed red wine that hits the market each fall after France’s grape harvest. Boisset Family Estates, a leading exporter, says the Beaujolais it ships to the U.S. this year will come in plastic bottles. Now a case will weigh 22 pounds, down from 38—a big savings in jet fuel consumption. Beaujolais rival Georges Duboeuf hasn’t yet gone plastic. But France’s Champagne trade group is also looking to lighten up. It just put a test batch of 2.5 million bubbly bottles made of thinner glass in the cellars of G.H. Mumm Champagne, to be monitored for a few years. “We want to be sure that the lighter glass stands up to pressure and doesn’t change the taste,” says a trade group spokeswoman.

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