While wineries of all sizes have heeded the call to be more sustainable in the vineyard and cellar, packaging remains the industry's Achilles' heel. Strides are being made across the supply chain, and consumers are even asking for new alternatives and more eco-friendly packaging.
Of course, the easiest way for wine to reduce its carbon footprint is to lower the weight of glass bottles and other containers, which would also lower transportation costs.
"I think wineries overall have done a good job in sustainability, but in reality, there hasn't really been a new packaging component," said Shannon Valladarez, general manager of Monterey Wine Company. "There hasn't been a model outside of glass. Sure, there's bag-in-box, aluminum cans and even refillable kegs for on-premise, but that's about it."
Now, two new bottles have come to market and illustrate Plato's well-worn adage, "Necessity is the mother of invention." Both simultaneously made their U.S. debut this year to answer the industry's demand for extremely lightweight and easily recycled bottles.
- Developed in Great Britain and already in production in Europe, Frugalpac is the first paper bottle and assembly bottling line, now exclusively licensed in North America by the King City, Calif.-based custom wine production facility, Monterey Wine Company.
- Next, a 750ml aluminum container that is actually shaped like a bottle of wine is astoundingly lightweight and infinitely recyclable, much like beer and soft drink cans. At first glance, the bottle appears simply designed, but it's actually the result of more than three years of research and development by the Clarksburg, Calif.-based Bogle Family Wine Collection.
The Frugal Bottle
The Frugal Bottle is five times lighter than glass, features a carbon footprint that is up to six times lower than a standard glass bottle and offers 360 degrees of printable surface (the bottle is the label). While the exterior is made of 94% recycled paperboard, the interior is made of a food-grade pouch-not unlike a bag-in-box package-to hold the wine without contributing any aroma or flavor.
While several brands in Europe have already bottled wine in this package, including Italy's Cantina Goccia and supermarket giant Aldi's store-brand, and even some spirits as well, it just recently made its entry into the American market.
"Frugalpac reached out to Monterey Wine Company with the understanding that we are risk-takers," Valladarez shared, noting that they go through an aggressive due diligence process when testing out new equipment, technology or products because they have to then go and sell it to winery clients.
"The timing was great for us because sustainability is on the forefront of what the wine industry is doing, so we already were in the mindset to say we have to do better in our packaging components," Valladarez explained. "We all have sustainable missions; we need to carry this through into packaging, especially with the new government environmental mandates in force or soon to be required."
The company spent an entire year in due diligence to understand the feasibility of taking on what ultimately would be a more than $2 million investment in new equipment and market testing, according to Valladarez-and that was just for the Frugalpac bottling machine itself. She explained that they're not a packaging company, like Frugalpac, though now they sell this technology and the paper sheets for the machine.
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