green cork
Gary Hewitt, Sommelier( ISG, CMS), CWE & Lisa Muirhead
The weight of glass bottles has two major impacts on the wine industry: the dollar cost of physically shipping bottles and the environmental cost due to emissions created during production and shipping. You can think of it like the 100-mile diet, a concept that has heightened consumer awareness of the“ real costs” associated with shipping— how much does that yummy ripe banana enjoyed in Winnipeg in January really“ cost”?
Glass weights and alternatives
In the wine industry, a heavy standard 750 ml glass wine bottle, such as a Champagne bottle, weighs about 850 g, a medium-weight bottle weighs about 650 g, and a light bottle weighs, on average, 450 g— though bottles as light as 300 g exist. The weight difference results from reduced glass thickness, and, in some cases, from minimizing the bottle punt( that dimple in the bottom of many bottles that lends structural strength).
Wineries pay shipping costs for both shipping the empty bottles to the winery and shipping full bottles to market. For Australia, the leading exporter of wine to Manitoba, shipping requires transport by truck to a consolidation point and then to port, by ship across the Pacific Ocean, and by truck to Manitoba( to be delivered, again by truck, to your favourite wine store, and to your home by car). Use of lighter bottles means that each of these loads moves more efficiently with relatively more wine in each weightsensitive shipment and subsequently lower“ costs.”
the Carbon footprint: Production versus transportation
Fetzer Vineyards is a leading eco-friendly California winery that uses certified organic grapes, a solar-powered bottling facility, and recycled materials to package their wine. Their wine bottles contain 35 per cent recycled glass, and have recently been reduced in weight by 25.5 per cent by using 16 per cent less glass, for an overall annual glass weight reduction of 2,100 tons! Fetzer claims a 14 per cent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions throughout the supply chain— that includes less energy spent during production of the bottles, as well as for transportation.
Plastic or tetra: The wave of the future?
At the forefront of this debate is the option of moving away from glass bottles altogether. If we set aside our sentimental attachment to glass wine bottles— tradition, aesthetics, and the cork pulling ceremony— we can take a hard look at true packaging alternatives. Australians have done so by embracing“ clean-skin” bag-in-box wines( still stigmatized in Canada as“ cheap”) in which glass has given way entirely to a light-weight polymer that conveniently collapses during use to prevent oxidation of the remaining wine.
Another emerging alternative is the Tetra Pak, essentially a paper container with a complex polymer lining. Compared to glass bottles, Tetra Paks use 92 per cent less packaging and consume 54 per cent less energy throughout their life cycle( which includes production, transportation, and disposal), resulting in 80 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions.
Another emerging innovation is plastic wine bottles. Loire Valley winemaker Vignobles Joseph Mellot has created plastic bottles so similar in appearance to screw-cap glass bottles that people gasp in surprise when they first lift the light, soft bottles. Their PET bottle has special oxygen and UV-light blocking layers and has none of the leeching concerns of phthalate-containing plastics.
The advantages of plastic packaging include: reduced weight, as light as 54 g per bottle; safer transit, as plastic bottles are more robust than glass alternatives; smaller size; and greater recycling potential( especially in Winnipeg, where there is no current market for recycled glass). While the current PET plastic used is more gas permeable, making the container less suitable for wine you want to age in your cellar over years, the vast majority of wines are made for consumption within 1 – 2 years of production, so there is still a vast potential market for non-glass wine containers. In addition, plastic makers are experimenting with barrier technologies to make their product more wine-friendly.
While paper and plastic alternatives to glass are by far the superior environmental choice, it remains to be seen if wine producers, and wine consumers, can get past their sentimental attachment to the traditional wine bottle.
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Vignobles Joseph Mellot’ s Destinéa Sauvignon Blanc, shown here in PET plastic bottles, looks just like glass— until you pick it up!
Eco-friendly tags on Banville & Jones Wine Co. store shelves indicate wines from around the globe that are produced under four categories: sustainably produced, organic, biodynamic, and carbon neutral.
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