We spent three months looking for a new wine bottle that would improve our carbon footprint. We discovered a space active with innovation but slow in consumer adoption.
Every natural winery would like to produce wine that is kinder to the environment.
We work every day to build a better ecosystem in and around our vineyards, so it follows that we should also ensure the same applies when we package and ship our wines to customers.
Classic Bordeaux grand cru bottles weigh 600-650g each before being filled with 750g of wine. So, a single bottle of wine can easily weigh 1.4kg. When you consider that even a small winery may send 10,000 bottles around the world, you quickly realize that the most significant difference you can make is by reducing the weight.
However, we should also consider the materials used, where the packaging is produced, and the end consumer's ability to recycle the packaging.
We began by looking for the lightest wine bottles in production. This led us to discover an innovative new brand from the USA making recycled PET (plastic) bottles lined with a nanolayer of glass that weighs just 150g. The glass lining ensures the wine does not touch the plastic, and with a traditional cork, it should age the same way as a conventional bottle. This massive weight saving was extremely compelling, and we were excited to showcase it to our customers. However, we faced considerable pushback. They found the plastic bottle looked less premium and were worried about scuff marks after shipping. Even though they saw the environmental upside, they believed people would be reluctant to buy them as they did not look as premium. Without buyer support, we were unable to progress to a trial run.
To overcome the issues presented by our customers, we switched to looking for the lightest recycled glass bottle, eventually finding one weighing just 290g. Unfortunately, we faced new challenges in packing and shipping. Lighter bottles are made of thinner glass, making them more prone to breakage, especially during international shipping. To overcome this, we would need to change packing boxes and add more packing material, significantly increasing the cost per bottle. Again, we were told that consumers wouldn’t pay the additional cost to make it happen.
In the end, we found a local glass producer that makes a bottle about 85g lighter per unit, maintaining roughly the same shape and style with no noticeable change in durability. While I’m disappointed that we couldn’t progress further, given our current production, we will still save about 1.5 tons in weight shipped to and from us around the world, which is definitely a win.
Although we couldn’t find the perfect lightweight bottle this year, I’m excited to see the innovation happening in the space. I hope that next year, we will be able to do even better.
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