A wine bottle, with its green glass, elegant label, and requisite cork, is an iconic image. Heck, it’s even an emoji (okay, okay, that’s a champagne bottle, but the sentiment remains). And yet, it seems that every few years we find ourselves having the same conversation about the potential and perceptions of a new packaging for wine.
As manufacturers of stainless steel wine barrels, we feel strongly about the power of more contemporary and sustainable wine container materials, but we can’t stop the naysayers in the industry.
The assumption is that boxed, canned, or aluminum-bottled wines are worse in some way. That the wine’s quality must be lesser because the carbon footprint of producing and shipping them is smaller? We don’t really get it.
But, hopefully, for every critic and consumer who buys into the stigma of alternative wine packaging, there is another who can see the strengths.
- Aluminum wine bottles weigh 80% less than standard glass bottles.
- Recycled paper-based bottles or boxes are often fully recyclable.
- Cans and boxes aren’t going to shatter in a grocery-unloading accident and stain your driveway with your favorite red. (Not that we have any personal experiences on this.)
- They’re more portable for sipping at the park or bringing multiple “bottles” to a friends’ party.
- They’re easier to stack and store for restaurants and wine bars.
- They’re easy to re-seal so consumers/restaurants don’t have to worry about wasting part of a bottle that wasn’t finished in one night.
As for the quality of the wine? Well, light and too much oxygen are the enemy of wine, so why wouldn’t you prefer a fully opaque or easily fully re-sealable container?
While it seems silly to continue to have this conversation over and over again, year after year, it does mean we’re still innovating and having conversations about sustainability in the wine supply chain. And we can’t be mad at that.
As for the “iconic” wine bottle? Well, there’s a whole generation and a half that have never seen a floppy disc, and that was once so iconic that we made it the universal symbol for “save”.