Can You Judge a Wine By the Shape of Its Bottle?

A curiously shaped bottle can be more than a gimmick—it can offer clues to the flavor and quality of the wine inside. Lettie Teague tried buying wines based on shape and found a few as interesting as the bottles they came in

“IF CUSTOMERS DON’T like the wine, I tell them they can always re-use the bottle for olive oil,” said Bill Brown, a sales associate at Gary’s Wines & Marketplace in Wayne, N.J., when I visited the store recently. The flagon-shaped bottle of 2016 Lady Lola Pinot Grigio did bear a strong resemblance to an olive oil container; it even came with a reusable stopper.

Lady Lola was one of 15 wines I purchased in a search for interesting bottles. I’d decided that most wine drinkers spend far too much time looking at labels and...