Would You Like Your Wine In Glass Or Plastic?
Ξ September 9th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ A Day at a Time, Technology, Wine History, Wine News, Wineries |
The battle for hearts and minds is on. Glass or plastic? As has been noted by many, Boisset Family Estates will introduce its 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau to America in 750 ml plastic bottles made of PET this November.
Always innovative, Boisset brought the world French Rabbit in a Tetra Pak in 2005. More than 70 wine brands have since followed suit. Next promised by the summer was Yellow Jersey, again in a 750 ml PET bottle. (I’ve not yet seen this wine here on the Central Coast of California. Distribution may currently limited to Canada and the UK.) And soon to be thrown into the mix is their 750 ml aluminum-bottled Mommessin Beaujolais and Macon Villages, 
. A curious feature of the latter is a what Boisset calls a ‘Chill Dot’.
“At 44 degrees F, the proper temperature for serving a Macon Villages or a Beaujolais, the dot turns from white to blue. It tells the consumer when the wine is properly chilled.”
Coors, most popularly, employs a similar technology, a thermochromic ink label.
So what is going on here? What is Boisset’s driving ambition?
PET, Polyethylene terephthalate, is making steady inroads. Last summer Sainsbury’s, a UK supermarket chain, began an experiment into consumer acceptance with the release of two wines, an Aussie Shiraz Rose and a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. (Additional details may be found at wineanorak.) More recently Wolf Blass launched a ‘Green Label’ Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. It has been written that both Hardys (now Constellation Wines Australia), and Palandri have introduced PET bottlings as well. There is no doubt other wineries will jump on board in the near term.
The reasons are clear:
1) At least 90% of all wine purchased in the US is consumed within the first 48 hours of purchase.
2) According to Jean-Charles Boisset, President of Boisett-America and Vice President of Boisset La Famille des Grands Vins, 70% of the wine sold in the world is priced under $10.
3) The use of plastic bottles, a far cheaper container to produce than glass, will result in the savings passed along to consumers. Boisset has made this argument but there is simply no practical business reason to believe it.
4) The environmental advantages of plastic over glass bottles include much less energy required for production, transportation and recycling.
5) PET bottles are transparent and shatter-proof.
6) Consumers have rapidly embraced the screwcap, suggesting a receptiveness to change, even more so when coupled with a ‘Green’ narrative.
This notion requires significant qualification.
Consumers have also embraced sustainable, organic and biodynamic winemaking. It is very difficult to see how plastic bottles can do anything other, certainly in the case of biodynamic practices, than throw into sharp relief the folly of so much care and good work done in the vineyard only to have the wine end up captured in a petrochemical-based product. I foresee accusations of hypocrisy directed by the consumer at the biodynamic winemaker and the subsequent corrosion of years of its hard-fought market positioning as the progressive agriculture should they turn to plastic bottles.
Glass, by contrast, partakes of natural processes, and has a place in the imagination. A child knows the joy of finding a piece of volcanic obsidian (pyroclastic glass, after all) and of collecting smoothed and colorful shards on a beach. Plastic enjoys no such charm. I myself have enjoyed melting glass bottles in the campfire, but should a plastic bottle accidently be set alight everyone who inhales the acrid smoke strongly suspects their life has just been shortened.
Further, the plastics industry has some distance to go to persuade the consumer that, as a whole, it has our ‘Green” interests at heart. The punishing resistance mounted by the plastics industry against attempts by some municipalities to ban the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag is a case in point. A March 14th article on the TodayShow.com website well illustrates the perils of community self-determination when it runs afoul of corporate interests.
7) PET is safe. Again, a caveat. Boisset’s Patrick Egan has made it clear not all wines are destined for a plastic bottle, especially their own. Of Boisset’s Grand Cru Burgundys, meant to be aged for 10 to 15 years, Mr. Egan, innovation and brand manager for Boisset’s French Rabbit writes, “[t]hose don’t necessarily belong in a package that’s not meant to last that long.” So the question arises: what happens to a wine when in a package “not meant to last that long”? How long is too long? One year, three years? Just what are the chemical expressions of PET’s degradation?
NAPCOR, the National Association for PET Container Resources, writes “PET is an inert plastic and does not leach harmful materials into its contents — either when a beverage is stored unopened, or when bottles are refilled or frozen. The PET container has been safely used for 20 years and has undergone rigorous testing under FDA guidelines to ensure its safety as a food and beverage container suitable for storage and reuse.”
Yet MedicineNet.com writes, “PET was found to break down over time and leach into the beverage when the bottles were reused. The toxin DEHA also appeared in the water sample from reused water bottles. DEHA has been shown to cause liver problems, other possible reproductive difficulties, and is suspected to cause cancer in humans. Therefore, it’s best to recycle these bottles without reusing them.”
So, is there a family of chemicals shared by ‘reuse’ and Boisset’s confession “not meant to last that long”? I suspect so, but I haven’t a productive lead. The research is not forthcoming. But, when further pursuing the matter, in the interests of fairness, I stumbled upon a most unfortunate echo chamber, the wedding of NAPCOR’s corporate statements with those of a seemingly independent site, PixelOrganics. NAPCOR’s official website postings are identical in wording to PixelOrganics. I encourage the reader to explore this especially bald instance of bad faith.
Getting back to more pedestrian matters, a Guardian article quotes a certain Pierre Mansour of the Wine Society,
“From a technical point of view, the wines will not keep as well in plastic because it’s not as inert a material as glass, so their shelf life is limited…. Plastic is more absorbent and will absorb some of the flavour.”
So, where are we? Hard to say. It is difficult to understand how it is, finally, in light of Pierre Mansour’s quote and despite NAPCOR’s attempt at reassuring PET standards, that plastic bottles manufactured everywhere around the world will be of the same chemical composition.
In an age when mothers suffer sleepless nights because their children have played with and suckled toxic plastic toys, why should we trust a simple #1 recycling mark impressed on the bottom of a bottle?
Meanwhile, beer, bottled in glass (when not canned, of course), enjoys in 2008 a double digit lead over wine as America’s favorite alcoholic beverage, the greatest percentage spread since 2002.
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