Wine expert Mike Bennie owns several boutique bottle shops in Sydney and is among those working to lower the wine industry’s carbon footprint.
Millions of glass wine bottles are discarded each year in Australia, and fewer than half are recovered. Glass bottles are also costly to produce consuming fossil fuels in manufacture, transport and even recycling.
Mr Bennie says low impact packaging is part of sustainable wine production which is a focus of his business, P&V Merchants in Sydney’s Newtown.
“Wine in a can is actually a really great way of packaging wine,” he says holding up a four pack.
“Cans are very portable, recyclable, and lightweight. And of course, not opening a bottle and having to come back to it, is a good solution for those seeking to drink less in life.”
Wine in lightweight cans Credit: Sandra Fulloon
And this trend suits eco-friendly packaging options like cans, which are already selling well overseas.
“The United States has taken to wine in cans, the United Kingdom is showing increasing interest. And so therefore I suggest that Australia will soon follow suit,” Mr Bennie says.
Wine company Fourth Wave based in Newcastle is among those innovating to meet changing consumer preferences.
Chairman Nicholas Crampton says the company is taking wine in environmentally-friendly packaging mainstream, including cans and refillable bottles for its Cowpunk label.
The Cowpunk refillable bottle. Credit: Sandra Fulloon
“The trucks are going to bottle shops every day full and then going back empty. So there's no challenge here at all. It is just getting people used to taking their glass back to their bottle shop.”
Refillable wine bottles are a win-win solution according to Rowena Curlewis, co-founder of drinks design company Denomination.
“A refillable bottle is the ultimate in terms of sustainability. It is not using any extra energy [to recycle] and it can be cleaned, relabelled and reused.
"And if we can get that, we're doing a true circular economy in wine.”
Wine vendor Mike Bennie agrees, and offers customers a refillable option at his Newtown store.
"The first time you buy the returnable wine bottle, you purchase the wine and the bottle. Then each time you come back, you just purchase the wine and a new bottle is swapped out."
Producing glass bottles for wine takes a toll on the environment. Fossil fuels are burned to make the glass and more fuel is used to transport wine in cases across the country.
As well, millions of wine bottles sold in Australia each year are imported from overseas. Many imported bottles are also filled with wine and then shipped back offshore, including to the UK and USA.
“Perhaps one of the most difficult things about wine bottles is justifying the heat and energy it takes to produce them and then subsequently the weight and the energy it takes to transport them around the world,” Mr Bennie says.
“If wine was invented today, I don't think we'd be having 750 millilitre glass bottles that are typically imported into Australia from overseas with huge environmental and freight costs.”
Wine grapes growing in Australia. Credit: Sandra Fulloon
Around 60 per cent of all Australian wine is exported, most of that in bulk. However, the rest ends up in glass bottles.
An Australian Packaging Covenant Organisation report has estimated that of the 1.3 million tonnes of glass discarded in Australia each year, less than half – 46 per cent – is recovered.
To help counter that, in July Australian manufacturer Packamama introduced its eco-flat wine bottle in Australia.
The bottles are made entirely from Australian-sourced recycled PET, helping to improve the wine industry’s carbon footprint.
When turned to the side, the bottle reveals a slimmer, flatter profile that allows twice as many bottles to fit in a standard wine case, and so are more efficient to transport.
Lightweight PET bottles are another new packaging option. Credit: Supplied Accolade Wines / Banrock Station
Even so, most wine buyers intending to cellar their wine prefer glass because it is inert and allows the wine to mature over time.
“I don't think consumers yet see glass as anything but natural,” says Fourth Wave’s Nicholas Crampton.
“And more education will be needed in our country to get consumers to change. I would say at the moment, the negatives significantly outweigh the benefits of moving outside of glass.”
Mike Bennie in his Newtown wine store Credit: Sandra Fulloon
“We do focus as heavily as possible on [wine producers] who make claims about sustainability or are able to show that with some sort of traceability.
“It is time to think about alternative ways to package, to ensure that we have a viable future in terms of environment around Australian wine,” he says.
