Wine with a lower carbon footprint

A trio of wines in plastic bottles are lighter to ship, but are we ready to accept them?

Thu, Oct 08 2009 at 1:31 PM EST

Last December I asked if you were ready to accept plastic wine bottles, but it was a bit of a rhetorical question. At the time, wine in plastic bottles wasn’t easily available in the United States. That has changed.

Wine.com now offers the Eco Wine Trio from Boisset Family Estates – a Merlot, a Côtes du Rhône, and a Pinot Noir in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles. PET is the plastic used for most water or soda bottles and has the #1 recycling symbol on it.

Weighing in at 90 percent less than traditional glass bottles and boasting a 50 percent reduced carbon footprint, the three wines come together in a gift package made from 100 percent recycled material.

Additionally, Wine.com will direct 10 percent of the retail price of the Eco Wine Trio to the EarthEra Renewable Energy Trust and carbon balance the shipments of the wine from the winery to the consumer. I’m assuming that “directing” 10 percent is the same as donating and that “carbon balancing” is similar to carbon offsetting. I’m also assuming the person writing their press releases is thesaurus-happy. If these terms mean something else, please let me know.

The cost for the three plastic bottles in their recycled package? $29.99 not including taxes or shipping charges. That’s reasonable. I’ve never had these particular wines before so I don’t know about their quality, but I’ve certainly had $10 bottles of wine before that were quite good.

I’m wondering what my readers think about this. Are you willing to switch from glass to plastic wine bottles to help the environment? I’m not so sure I’m ready to make the switch. It’s purely an image thing. I admit it. There’s no reason to believe the quality of the same wine in a plastic bottle would be any different than that of wine in a glass bottle, but I think it will be a while before I embrace the plastic. Yet I would probably be impressed if I came to your house and you were serving wine from a plastic bottle for the good of the environment.

There’s more than one way to eco-up your wine. Buying organic wine or wine made from sustainably grown grapes is one. Buying wine from local vineyards that don’t need to ship far is another. Boxed wine or tetra packed wines are yet another. I tend to go for the sustainably grown or local wines.

How about you? Do you make an effort to eco-up your wine? How do you do it?

Image: wine.com

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