Could a glass shortage keep you from picking up your favorite adult beverage? The Jasper Winery in Iowa said it has plenty of wine glasses.But they’re having trouble finding wine bottles.Owner Mason Groben said he thought shutting down during the pandemic would be his biggest challenge after two decades in the wine-making business. But, now, there's a new problem: Dealing with a glass shortage. “There is going to be a glass shortage. And our glass supplier has told me about that, and the biggest thing is that for the first time in 20 years of making wine I've had to sign a contract for the entire next year to secure my glass,” Groben said.Groben said he's happy to have his Jasper Winery open again.And his wedding event center business is booming.But the supply chain slowdown is cramping his wine bottling operation.Eighty percent of his wine ends up in bottles.Much of his glass bottle stock comes from China and Mexico. Now, he is innovating. He is offering more wine in cans, though aluminum prices are rising too.He said he's also been forced to use different-sized glass bottles. He's had to order earlier and pay higher prices. He said his customers are adapting. “It’s a whole new challenge. We just do our best to adapt and plan ahead,” Groben said.Groben said he expects the glass shortage to last well into next year. Watch the full story in the video above.

The wine is out of this world. The price is appropriately stratospheric.Christie’s said Tuesday it is selling a bottle of French wine that spent more than a year in orbit aboard the International Space Station. The auction house thinks a wine connoisseur might pay as much as $1 million to own it.The Pétrus 2000 is one of 12 bottles sent into space in November 2019 by researchers exploring the potential for extraterrestrial agriculture. It returned 14 months later subtly altered, according to wine experts who sampled it at a tasting in France.Tim Tiptree, international director of Christie’s wine and spirits department, said the space-aged wine was “matured in a unique environment” of near zero-gravity aboard the space station.The trip turned a $10,000-a-bottle wine known for its complexity, silky, ripe tannins and flavors of black cherry, cigar box and leather into a scientific novelty — and still a fine bottle of wine, Tiptree said.“It’s just a very harmonious wine that has the ability to age superbly, which is why it was chosen for this experiment,” he said. “It’s very encouraging that it was delicious on return to Earth.”Private space startup Space Cargo Unlimited sent the wine into orbit in November 2019 as part of an effort to make plants on Earth more resilient to climate change and disease by exposing them to new stresses. Researchers also want to better understand the aging process, fermentation and bubbles in wine.At a taste test in March at the Institute for Wine and Vine Research in Bordeaux, France, a dozen wine connoisseurs compared one of the space-traveled wines to a bottle from the same vintage that had stayed in a cellar.They noted a difference that was hard to describe. Jane Anson, a writer with the wine publication Decanter, said the wine that remained on Earth tasted a bit younger, the space version slightly softer and more aromatic.The wine, being offered by Christie’s in a private sale, comes with a bottle of terrestrial Pétrus of the same vintage, a decanter, glasses and a corkscrew crafted from a meteorite. It’s all held in a hand-crafted wooden trunk with decoration inspired by science fiction pioneer Jules Verne and the “Star Trek” universe.Proceeds from the sale will fund future research by Space Cargo Unlimited. Several other bottles from the dozen that went to space remain unopened, but Christie’s says there are no plans to sell any of them.Tiptree says the price estimate, “in the region of $1 million,” reflects the sale’s likely appeal to a mix of wine connoisseurs, space buffs and the kind of wealthy people who collect “ultimate experiences.”The lot includes the bottle of 2000 Pétrus that remained on Earth so the buyer can compare the two — should they decide to open the one that went into orbit.“I would hope that they will decide to drink it, but maybe not immediately,” Tiptree said. “It’s at its peak drinking, but this wine will last probably another at least another two or three decades.”