The Greening of wine and plastic bottles

Saw an article in a magazine that Sue gets from Sirrometwinery which says that they are going Green and introducing wine in plastic (PET) bottles as there are produce less CO2 than glass bottle and are easily recyclable.

So the question is, will wine in PET bottles take off like screwcaps have done? In my opinion, even for the wines that are designed to be drunk in the first year of their lives will not sell well on the supermarket shelves. Even if technology advances eventually produce a plastic bottle that will extend the shelf life of the wine.

That being said, their approach to becoming Green is much better than that of other Carbon Neutral companies that have enough money that they can afford to pay someone else to plant trees to offset their CO2 production.

I'm not sure what makes plastic more easily recyclable than glass. There is a major effort in the U.S. by greenies to discourage buying water in plastic bottles.

The newsletter talks about manufacturing rather than recycling of PET having the lower CO2 content and that doesn't surprise me, glass is energy intensive to make. I'd guess the PET bottles they are talking about are the ones we see on airliners. Interesting they claim they don't affect the taste of the wine (which I'd dispute from experience) and yet also note the shelf life of these is only about 9 months! hardly sounds like a long term stable inert container.

I also note Sirromet talk about Energy use as a scope 1 emission. By the standard definitions of these things, energy use is a scope 2 emission, unless you're combusting fuel yourself.

Also re greenies discouraging water in plastic bottles, I thought that was more about "food miles" and the CO2 footprint from transporting water from source to consumer rather than just turning on a tap? Water is relatively energy intensive to move around.

Disclosure: I'm the Carbon Strategy Manager for a large power station near Brisbane, Qld.

Cheers

Andrew

No, I don't believe the general public is ready to accept wines in PET bottles rather than glass.

Yes, PET bottled wines have a distressingly short shelf life. My company has a great deal of experience with PET mini-bottles, and we're very careful to make sure that the wine is destined for quick turnover.

Our solution was to go with a glass that is considerably lighter than regular bottles, and is made partially of recycled glass. That has helped reduce the carbon footprint and cut shipping costs at the same time. Since we just recently started with that program, no word yet from the QC guys as to how it's going.

Bought a Beaujolais Nouveau in a PET bottle, which seems a good idea: short-lived wine sent air freight should be in plastic.

However, it's hard to accept paying more than $10 for a plastic bottle. I love screwcaps, and hate heavyweight bottles, but in plastic it seems unsubstantial. Too bad, because on a purely rational level it makes a lot of sense.

Walt

I certainly hope it will come with a real cork.
Walt