Originally published as part of a longer article in the August 2011 issue of Drinks Business.

The USA’s huge market and strong preference for cork make it an ideal market for recycling. Cork manufacturer Amorim have an ongoing project there where recycled corks, from any origin, are re-used by Sole, a Canadian footwear company.  Since the ‘Recork’ programme kicked off in 2007, 16 million corks have been collected.  Carlos de Jesus, Amorim’s director of communications said “it’s mostly California and Washington.  It needs to be done in a financially and environmentally viable way”, there’s no point shipping a few thousand corks across states because it costs more than any benefit of recycling stoppers.

In mainland Europe, said de Jesus, used corks “are sent back to Amorim and incorporated in the production process of any non-stopper produce including floor and wall coverings, and aerospace applications”. He added the NH hotel chain “with properties throughout Europe have announced a partnership with Amorim to recycle corks.”

The scale of recycling is still tiny. Amorim recovered the equivalent of just over 1% of the company’s annual sales of cork stoppers.

The costs of shipping used corks across the English Channel can outweigh the recycling benefits. So in the UK it was Direct Wines/Laithwaites that picked up the recycling baton at the beginning of 2009. Anne Linder, development manager for Laithwaites Wines said “it grew out of recycling wooden wine boxes at a special needs school close to us, who make all manner of things such as trays and bird boxes. They were looking to grow that art and craft activity with cork.“

To generate a flow of material for the school there are now cork bins, taking all cork-based stoppers but no synthetics, in all Laithwaites shops.  Linder added they were able go further “because we have a small vineyard, so we put the corks through a garden shredder to use as chippings to suppress week growth and retain moisture. All the glue is food grade, so there’s no risk of anything nasty.” Word is spreading, because Laithwaites also collect the used corks from the Savoy Hotel, and now the Goring, in London, though the garden shredder is a personal option is available to all consumers with a garden or allotment.

The remainder of the original article can be found:
Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified cork stoppers
Reasons to choose stoppers

Mediterranean cork oak forest

Originally published as part of a longer article in the August 2011 issue of Drinks Business.

The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been certifying Mediterranean cork forests since 2005, and by 2010 the certified area had reached nearly 72,000 ha, out of more than 2.5 mha of Mediterranean and North African cork oak landscape.

Certification means cork oak growers can supply to cork stopper manufacturers traceable cork planks from forests certified to adopt landscape-sustainable practices. Part of this sustainability includes forest regeneration to prevent the landscapes from eroding.

Vera Santos, the executive director of FSC Portugal said “Portugal has around 52, 000ha of cork oak forest FSC certified. It is expected that by August this year, the FSC certified area of cork oak forests will reach 90,000ha [due to] a new FSC group certification and some new members joining existing groups.” She added “the target is to have 150,000ha certified by the end of 2012.”

In Spain, some 30,000 ha of mixed forests, including cork forests, have been certified.

Across the two countries there are also some dozen cork manufacturing companies that are certified by FSC to produce FSC-certified products, for example cork stoppers. Amorim have been at the vanguard of FSC certification, but even for them it’s a tiny proportion of their total stopper production, about 10 million FSC stoppers out of 3.2 billion stoppers in total. de Jesus said with FSC there “could be as much as 20% more cost” and what started with single piece natural cork stoppers – the traceability and chain of custody was manageable – now includes technical stoppers and those made from cork particles such as sparkling wine stoppers.

As recently as a couple of months ago [sub – the timing of this comment is correct for August publication] the manufacturers of diam stoppers “applied for FSC certification, which should be available by the end of this year” said their vice president of marketing, Bruno de Saizieu. But, he added “demand is not huge, today it’s less than 1%”

In the UK, Sainsbury’s and the Co-op have drawn a line in the sand regarding FSC stoppers.

Clem Yates, winemaker and product technical manager for Sainsbury’s, said “own label wine accounts for one third of the wine range at Sainsbury’s and of that I would say 40% of those wines are under cork. We are already the world’s largest purchaser of FSC corks and use over 6 million corks per annum.”

Environment clearly plays a role in decision making.  Yates said “At JS, one of our core values is sourcing with integrity. This helped us decide to move all our own label cork stoppers to FSC.” This is a work in progress, initially moving existing cork stoppers to FSC cork.

Over at the Co-op, Ian Rogerson, their technical manager for beverages, said “As a business, we’re committed to using more sustainable packaging. The Co-operative has moved a large number of its own-brand wines with cork closures to FSC cork. We are trying to move as many suppliers as possible to FSC, on our own labels.”

He suggested supply had been a limiting factor, saying “When FSC closures first came on market, they were initially only available at very top end of the market”, i.e. single piece cork.  He said that regular level stoppers, and technical stoppers only became available about two years ago, adding “the quantity of FSC material available is now beginning to increase, so opportunities to pursue this option are becoming greater.”

The remainder of the original article can be found:
Reasons to choose stoppers
Recycling cork stoppers

I’d imagined this was going to be a book about natural wines under a slightly different name to draw us in. But the reader quickly grasps this book is about more than the narrow, ‘natural’, narrative. It embraces the broadest discussion of wines of place within a treatise around the various environmental issues affecting viticulture and winemaking, as the authors draw together current thinking on how a sense of place in wine is achieved, including the place natural wine has in that tapestry.

It neatly brings together the different, sometime diffuse, strands of issues relating to the practice of increasing sustainability in wine-growing. It groups the various current initiatives in one place, and opens up for thought the major issues relating to improving the sustainability of the ways vines are grown and wines are made, arguing a connection to, and stewardship of, the land is vital to express terroir, or typicity. They argue the logical extension of this land stewardship carries on into the winery, where as few human interventions and manipulations as possible result in original wines. (Wo)man they argue (quite rightly to my view) is of course a necessary part of terroir expression – there is no “bubbling brook of Chablis” they write!

It opens up the discussion on terroir, on organics and biodynamics, and on yeasts’, ripeness’ and alcohol’s contribution to sense of place. It’s not until chapter 8 that the natural wine movement is opened up, after all the various winemaking interventions and manipulations have been outlined – the very things that the ‘natural winemaker’ seeks to minimise.  Natural wines are a hugely opined topic of fashion in the wine industry, often with so much opinion and less substantiation, so it was good to read about the thoughtful origins of this movement in Beaujolais in the authors’ refreshing, dispassionate style.

Given the paucity of scientific evidence for so many terroir effects, the pair do well to emphasise their own beliefs and suppositions where science does not yet have an authoritative (authentic?) answer, for example, they summarise received wisdom about minerality (a subject close to my heart) and explore it via anecdote and experiential evidence, which is about all there is at the moment. On this basis, there are plenty of subjects raised in this book from which academic scientists might be able to build research projects.

Disappointingly the pictures are reproduced in black and white, which may be good for production costs, but it’s not necessarily great to identify what’s trying to be shown. A central series of pages of colour plates might have been preferable, especially as the images don’t always relate directly to specific bits of text.

The individual experiences of case studies give good anecdotes, such as Nigel Greening’s (Felton Road) use of goats, rather than herbicide spray, to keep thorn bushes at bay, which subsequently themselves become dinner. Or Frank Cornelissen (making wine on Mt Etna in Sicily) discussing the more extreme end of the natural/non-interventionist spectrum.

Packed in between all these topics are chunky, detailed sections on winemaking matters that inform the authors’ views, and gets readers up to speed on the facts around such things as manipulations, yeasts and faults. Who knew that Saccharamyces cerevisiae is a lurker that uses the creation of alcohol to beat off the yeast competition?

I’m intrigued that the authors advocate certification of sustainable practices but seem not to have the same view with regard to organics, biodynamics, or natural wine. In that all these approaches should form one segment of wider sustainability, I tend to think certification of any of the approaches is the only really measurable route towards that wider sustainability.

This book has me nodding my head in agreement and shaking it occasionally in latent debate all the way through – which probably means it’s hit the mark for the authors. It’s a persuasive read in a calm, eminently readable style which makes the complex subjects hugely approachable and comprehensible.  Given the importance of these subjects, that is great work. I can envisage readily-thumbed volumes of this sitting on the bookshelves of wine enthusiasts and professionals alike.

Philippe Drouhin

During a visit in July 2010, I visited Burgundy business Joseph Drouhin, at their Beaune offices, where I met with fourth generation, Philippe Drouhin, the estates manager, who runs the domaine properties and negociant business along with his three younger siblings Véronique, the chief winemaker, Laurent, their director in the USA, and Frédéric, the company’s president.

The domaine part of the business owns more than 70 hectares in the Côte de Nuits, Côte de Beaune, Côte Chalonnaise and Chablis, making it one of the largest domaines in Burgundy.  It accounts for around 40% of Drouhin’s total business.

And though it isn’t displayed prominently, in fact it isn’t displayed at all, on the label, all the domaine vineyards are certified organic. Philippe explains why, after more than 20 years of working in an organic way, he only latterly sought certification.

He said “In 1988, fresh out of viticultural school, I was convinced the synthetic way of managing vineyards was risky and might be a dead end. Everything we were told about diseases was warnings of resistance to downy mildew etc., withholding periods because of residues [on the fruit], and issues of yeast.”

“In 1988, yellow and red mites were a big problem. The beginning of the discovery for me was Typhlodromus pyri, a small mite that eats the other mites.” Vignerons had been using chemicals since the 1960s which also killed the T. pyri, but, he said “the new chemicals [at the time] had to avoid damaging the pyri” because of the work it did in countering red and yellow mites. Now”, Philippe added “no-one now uses chemicals against yellow and red mite.

“New chemicals come on the market on every three years, but we know nothing about the long term effects, and we have no knowledge about [the consequences of] mixing the various chemicals.” Chemicals tend to be targeted against single issues so combining chemicals against e.g. downy mildew, powdery mildew and mites all together creates an unknown situation.

Clos des Mouches

Philippe continued “so it was obvious for me to use organic chemicals such as copper and sulphur. It was still risky but it was the way to go – for the safety of people working in vineyards, and for living organisms we did not want to kill with the new chemicals. I decided we should go the organic way.

“I was getting interested in soils at this time. It was obvious that terroir is everything. Terroir, for me only [exists] if the soil is functioning well.” He said “to manage the soil using weed killers was like genocide; you kill some parts of the soil population completely. And if I use a plough, it’s like an earthquake. Ploughing decreases microbial activity, but it does come back soon after you stop. The best [solution] was to have grass, which is difficult in the Côte d’Or.”

Not that Philippe was deterred. “I started in difficult and easy places. Chorey-les-Beaune was difficult because it is flat and humid; Clos des Mouches and Corton-Charlemagne were easy. And 2 or 3 years after this, I expanded it to the whole Côte d’Or estate, then into Chablis.”

Now, Philippe said “it’s easier to manage the vineyards organically than with synthetic chemicals. For example, there are re-entry delays with chemicals, up to 48 hours for synthetic chemicals, but only 6 hours for organic applications.”

Having worked to organic principles for so many years, and adopted some biodynamic techniques over the past 13 years, Philippe said “I felt in 2006 it was necessary to ask for certification. It changed nothing but the paperwork and the expense. It was to be able to prove we are actually doing it. We’ve never used it commercially. Though now it becomes a selling point for some estates, and there was a tendency for some estates to let people think they were organic when they weren’t.”

Certification gets around that unclear situation, though Philippe highlighted one of the weakness of organic certification “with the organic approach, the impact on the environment is in the vineyards rather than the winery. There is still no definition of organic wine.” In fact this is something the EU reviewed recently but member nations could not agree on a definition and process for the making of organic wine, so it remains wine ‘produced from organically grown grapes’. Philippe emphasised “we need to have [a definition], to certify that the process in the winery didn’t lead to a contamination of organic wine.“

Clos des Mouches

If anyone is looking for a checklist of things to do for an environmentally sympathetic viticulture, or expanded biodiversity, Philippe was not particularly encouraging. He said “I don’t have a structured plan as result of sophisticated study. There are things we’ve done that keep diversity in the landscape such as planting trees, addressing erosion. For example, managing grass is critical to the flow of water. In Chablis, it is common to have long slopes, so by cutting rows and having a bank [across] with tough grass, we can create a stop that cuts the speed of water and retains some earth.

“We’re going to have three or four beehives in the premier cru vineyard Clos des Mouches. In old French it was ‘mouche à miel’ [so honey flies, as in bees]. Bees are having problems surviving, so we decided to introduce them. In the past three weeks, we’re waiting for a population of bees to be caught.”

Philippe was cautious though “within the vineyards, there is not much diversity. We don’t know how they will live. In Clos des Mouches we have small patches of grass, of trees, of flowers, but maybe it is not enough for them, though they can fetch food from five miles away.” He added “It is part of biodiversity, its good to help in modest way.”

Did Philippe ever encounter any resistance from his siblings for his ecological approach? He said not, but “my father had an opinion. He dealt with the vineyards like I’m doing today. He said he was not in favour or against, but it made sense that I try it. He knew there was some risk, so he did not want me to go too fast, but that was not my intention. He said to me the right way was to abandon all the fertilisers because he felt the vineyards were looking too good, too vigorous, too green, and the wines were not so good.”

Overall he said “I suspect that the quality has increased, but I have no proof. But it’s obvious for me that organics and biodynamics have an impact on the wine, the terroir expression, the quality.” And, rather modestly, he added “all [my siblings] are happy with the increase in quality of the wines … at the same time the vineyards have got older, the weather has got warmer”, suggesting other factors may also be at play.

My research visit to Burgundy in July 2010 was sponsored by the BIVB

Because this is a print on demand book, Waldin sent me pdfs to review.  Which means it’s impossible to get a feel for the heft and smell and visual impact of his book. But ultimately no big deal – it’s the content that’s important.

Waldin’s first book on biodynamic wines was written in 2004, and he later made his own wines using biodynamic techniques in the south of France. So he is evidently a passionate advocate of biodynamic viticulture.

His book follows a logical process – outlining the origin of biodynamics, before detailing the preparations / treatments / infusions and what they do.  It is a little weird, though, having a chapter on how the book works as Chapter 10, which might have been better placed at the front.

Waldin’s definition of organic viticulture is a little disparaging, especially given the number of certified organic producers he cites in part 2, and I feel he rather glosses over the issue of copper build-up in the soil which is an issue for both organic and biodynamic viticulture. He does, though, devote a paragraph to this rather serious issue later in the book (p 130).

His ‘origins of biodynamics’ takes the reader thoughtfully through the ‘scientific substance versus spiritual signs’ arguments before embarking on discussing the preparations, with interesting history, anecdote and example, as well as the details of what each comprises and does; how to make and when to use. 

The importance of certification is addressed, as he says “As biodynamics has become such a buzz-word in wine there is a predictable trend of dyed-in-the-wool conventional wineries miraculously becoming “biodynamic” overnight.” This does mean when it comes to the wine, the onus is on the buyer to check the actual status of any producer.

Part 2, which comprises nearly three quarters of the book, gives the details of organic and biodynamic growers across the world, by country. I found this a little confusing as organic cultivation is incontrovertibly different from biodynamic cultivation. So reader beware: organic is most definitely not biodynamic.

Each country gets an introduction detailing some of their important organisations (each region in France), as well as the relative importance of combined organic/biodynamic viticulture. So about 1% of Australia’s vineyard hectarage is certified organic and biodynamic, about 3.5% of Austria’s vineyards etc., and the appendix usefully lists all these in a chart. The likelihood is, though, that most of those hectares are organic rather than biodynamic.

Waldin’s first sentence for each producer is their certification status which is unambiguous and helpful, though one or two producers appear to have been ‘in conversion’ for much longer than it takes to convert. 

As a minimum each producer has contact details listed. Most producers get a little or larger biography, and there are plenty of enjoyable stories among them. A few icons, including Alvaro Espinoza of Chile, Jean-Michel Deiss of Alsace and James Millton of New Zealand also get a picture.

Waldin rightly makes no comment on the quality of the wines being produced. A method of viticulture, certified or otherwise, gives no guarantee of better quality than any other method of viticulture.

Biodiversity is the latest in a series of buzz-words in the field of sustainability as all agriculturally-based industries address the vagaries and pitfalls of mono-culture. It encompasses the an overriding need to reduce industrial chemical inputs which are generally acknowledged to denude the natural ecosystem over time.

One of biodiversity’s challenges is that it is a broad, albeit tangible, church, and as with other buzzwords, it is open to misleading communication. Dr. Linda Thomson, Senior Research Fellow at CESAR (the Centre for Environmental Stress and Adaptation Research) in the University of Melbourne, Australia explained: “biodiversity is a diverse suite of animals and plants present in any ecosystem. It’s important for agriculture, vineyards included.

Inter-row diversity, invertebrate habitat (NZ)

“If we enhance useful biodiversity, we can provide an economic reason for being interested in it: if, for example, it increases the suite of natural enemies.” Her specialty is invertebrates which she said: “underpin everything, and by enhancing the biodiversity of invertebrates, you assist with the whole chain.”

Functional biodiversity

We’re familiar with the concept of functional aspects of biodiversity being harnessed to reduce negative impacts on the environment, for example using parasitic wasps to reduce pest populations, rather than using chemicals.

Alongside such benefits, biodiversity seems to be gaining ground as economic benefits are also highlighted. Dr Maarten van Helden, associate professor at ENITA – Bordeaux University, who specialises in agro-ecology and integrated pest management, believes the economic benefit of biodiversity is an important part of the communication. He said “Farmers see biodiversity as being a functional part of the agro-ecosystem. They would normally perceive it as something that provides a service, for example, reducing pest and insects.”

Van Helden went on: “managing vineyards to be able to conserve biodiversity creates costs on one side, such as planting hedgerows, but other practices, for example mowing can be done less frequently.” However such connections may not always be clear-cut, as Philippe Bardet of Château Val d’Or in St Emilion, whose commitment to biodiversity has been growing for 15 years, said “we have fewer passages through the vineyard in a tractor, but savings are balanced because we need to spend more time on personal inspection in the vineyard.”

The entire 1,500 hectare Saumur-Champigny appellation has recruited van Helden to help with biodiversity. They asked him to create a landscape management plan which would reduce insect pests in the area. Van Helden said: “We looked at pest insects across the whole appellation and showed the main pest insect was grape berry moth (Lobesia); it is the main insect of monoculture and is reduced in non-mono culture.” A growing 25 km of hedgerows is one of the results.

Vineyard worker? (Chile)

Vice president of the producers’ syndicate, Fredrik Filliatreau, for whom this project was his main pre-occupation for six years, during his presidency of the syndicate, said “this is a big step for us. We’re not looking to transform the appellation into organic. The main idea is to make growers think about ecology. A lot of the growers over 50 years old; they have wonderful experience, but may not be very sensitive about ecology. But they are pleased to be involved: it’s good for their wallets because they use less money. And it’s better for the ecology.” The syndicate has funded a full time co-ordinator to develop the biodiversity work in the appellation and wider community.

The idea is clearly gaining pace in France. At the end of 2009 St Emilion launched an appellation-wide biodiversity initiative under the technical aegis of Philippe Bardet. He said it all “starts with respect for biodiversity. You have to think it before you do it. Viticulturalists will not change three generations of practice overnight.”  The idea, he said, was “not to introduce rules into St. Emilion, but to understand the interactions between all living things and their viticultural ecosystem.”

Thomson’s work in Australia on the potential economic benefit of shelter belts was positive. She said: “you can buy some animals commercially – lady beetles, some parasitoids, such as trichogramma. These are little insects that lay eggs within the egg of something else. One single trichogramma female will lay her eggs into many moth eggs. We compared the number you get from vegetation to the cost of buying those from a commercial supplier, and found the piece of vegetation is worth thousands of dollars in respect of pest control.”

Community, conservation and collateral benefit

Even with evidence of the economic argument, the biodiversity picture is, well, diverse, and it’s closely linked with what’s outside the plot of vines.  The pursuit of biodiversity requires land that is not being used for crop. 

But it doesn’t mean abandoning parts of commercial vineyards. Van Helden said “normally viticulture does not occupy all the space. There’s often 5-25% of surface not used to plant vines.” Thomson said “producers [in Australia] are working towards 10% of their land under alternative vegetation,” adding “aiming for 10% is not always a sacrifice: some regions within vineyards are not suitable for vines. And there is concern about chemicals in communities, so vegetation belts may be seen as a protective screen.”

The whole community is being involved in the Saumur-Champigny project, where, Filliatreau said: “It’s not just about vineyards. Our entire zone is 60 square kilometres, and we are only 1,500 ha. We have a full-time person at the syndicat to develop biodiversity with the growers and with the villages.” 

Collateral benefit? (Argentina)

The conservation aspect was a driver in South Africa, where the biodiversity and wine initiative (BWI) grew, at least in part, out of a need to conserve the rapidly dwindling Cape Floral Kingdom. It’s one of around 30 biodiversity hotspots in the world, which by definition, has lost more than 70% of its original habitat.

Inge Kotzé, BWI project co-ordinator said: “we have 156 producers accredited by BWI and 118,000 ha now written into long term conservation.” This is more than the entire South African vineyard hectarage. She added: “an equally important achievement of this project is the amount of area cleared and maintained free of invasive alien plant species, estimated at least 50,000 hectares, with long term alien clearing activities underway.” The ‘aliens’ for example, pines and gums, are water-hungry so their removal makes available a greater proportion of water to native vegetation, and lessens the frequency-risk of sporadic fires.

The collateral benefit from greater biodiversity is a theme picked up by Su Birch, CEO of WOSA, an industry organisation which promotes South African wine abroad, who said “there are some species that are more useful than others – baboons are not very useful – but it is about balance. Once the vineyards grow along side natural habitat the input costs are hugely reduced as nature gets things in balance: for example more insects mean more guinea fowl, more guinea fowl means the lynx return, more moles mean the owls return.”

New Zealand, another biodiversity hotspot, also has unique flora to conserve. Philip Manson, science and innovations manager at New Zealand Winegrowers said they are “looking at native species to bring back into the vineyard. You get a double effect of enhancing nature’s systems and retaining native vegetation.”

And Manson highlighted the native NZ falcon as a conservation project-cum-collateral benefit to the wine industry. The NZ falcon is rarer than the kiwi. Falcons have re-colonised the Wairau Plains, in Marlborough, from which they’d been driven by over a 100 years of man’s influence by sheep farming and latterly vineyards. Not only are there now 27 falcons in the plain, which it is hoped will become a interlinking breeding population with other populations in more remote locations, but Manson said, there’s “evidence that where the birds are based, the damage to grapes is significantly lower.” Bird damage, especially at harvest, costs the NZ wine industry around NZ$70m annually.

Though industry is at a foetal stage of understanding the functional and collateral benefits of biodiversity, the goal must be for more stable, diverse, agricultural systems.  Bardet said “if you’ve got balanced biodiversity in an agro-system, over time it is more stable. So when an accident or disease happens, the system regenerates more quickly than if it’s just vines.”

Consumers prefer glass bottles. And most Brits believe glass is an environmentally friendly form of wine packaging; more than for any other type of drinks packaging.  Innovation in wine packaging is rife, but what about the actualities of recycling so-called recyclable alternative packs.

As part of the drive to damage the environment less, weight is being designed out of packaging. Government-funded WRAP, the Waste Resource and Action Programme, has been driving the light-weighting of glass bottles, which so far remain consumers’ unchallenged favourite packaging format. By taking out weight, fewer carbon emissions are created during manufacture and transport. Part of the initiative includes shipping wine to the UK in bulk containers, and bottling in the UK at specialist bottlers. One whole container shipment can be saved this way.  Transporting one container of bulk wine is the equivalent of two containers of bottled wine. 

But a study by Reh Kendermann has shown there may be a greater element of sustainability to bulk ship to Germany, bottle there, then ship on to the UK. Their research looked not just at carbon emissions, but also how much recycled glass was used e.g. 34%, on average, in the UK, versus 90% for green bottles at Reh Kendermann, and energy sources – the UK average is just 4% renewable energy, and RK uses 16%. Their export sales director, Alison Flemming MW said: “There are obvious savings to be made when not bottling at source for new world wines, but perhaps it is not so well known that Germany has a distinct advantage in terms of reduced carbon emissions thanks to using the Rhine for transportation, as well as more effective, renewable energy use. We work with a number of partners in the UK and around the world on this basis.”

Can do

Rexam, makers of cans, have also been busy. They’re responsible for the recent launches onto the UK market – Wild Pelican, Elkan, Black Tower, as well as some prosecco brands.  John Revess, their marketing director said: “Consumer research showed young female consumers in England find the concept and product delivery of wine in a can appealing.  It’s light, it’s practical, it’s non-masculine. For sparkling white, why open a whole bottle, when you have the correct serving size.” 

He added, with the “number of single households increasing, single serve wines in 187 and 200ml are convenient. And cans are the most recycled drinks container in the world.”

The 18.75cl/20cl slim-line Rexam cans are well differentiated from a beer or carbonated soft drink can. But it is the Rexam fusion bottle that has been making waves recently. Stephen Howell, their breakthrough innovation manager said the “fusion can is new for the industry. We wanted to create a brand for the bottle, rather than create another can. We’ve fused standing can manufacture with a unique necking facility to produce something new and dynamic. It’s taken about 4 years in development and more than €4m in a pilot plant.”

Howell said there’s no reason not to use this for wine as well as other products. Only in May was the pilot plant opened, with the aim for full commercialisation by the end of 2009. Clearly the impetus for wine in a can could not wait that long.  As thought predicting success, a75cl fusion bottle is already on the drawing board.

On the technical side, as with bag-in-box and composite cartons, an internal food-grade barrier lining is required to prevent metal pick up by the wine.  This is the same coating used for other drinks, just thicker for wine. And on the oxygen front, still wines are dosed with liquid nitrogen which expands and pushes out the headspace oxygen immediately prior to sealing on the lid. It also gives a rigid feel to the filled pack.  

Yvon Mau’s new brand, Jolie Terre, has overcome the squat PET bottle as ‘wine-stubbies’ equivalent, with an elegant, slim PET bottle, which is just as tall as its glass bottle equivalent. Technology is key here too. Their CEO, Philippe Laqueche said: “we are using a single layer barrier which has been improved, and we will use a [further improved] multi-layer barrier later this year.”

Perfectly proportioned portions?

Wine cans of 20cl for sparkling and 18.75cl for still fit the single serve idea perfectly. To this end, The Company of Wine People have brought out a 25cl pouch pack for Arniston Bay, following on from the success of the 1.5 litre pouch last year. The company’s brand and trade marketing manager, Felicity Billington, said: “we launched the 250ml this year to broaden the appeal to a different sector. 250ml is more for the convenience sector, for travel and events, festivals and sporting events where you can’t take glass into arenas; for catering and airlines. It’s much lighter to carry and it’s flat once empty, so less weight and space is use on board.”  She added women especially were interested in the concept.

Recycle

Of the three ‘R’s (not reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic), but reduce, re-use and recycle, a lot of energy has been invested in the first R, with lightweight packs of all descriptions.

Pouches and composite cartons such as Tetra Pak, SIG Combibloc and Elopak are evidently single use, but the re-use of glass drinks bottles is not currently on the agenda.  A reversion to the 1970s deposit system would certainly remove the high level of energy required to re-melt glass cullet to make new glass bottles, but it’s not so simple, said Rebecca Cocking, recycling manager at British Glass: “returnables are heavier, they have to be designed to go through up to 12 washes. The collection, transport and distribution and wash side also needs to be considered. There’s not necessarily a saving to transport empty bottles to a filling point.”

Despite energy-intensive production for, among others, glass containers, Cocking argued: “our raw materials are abundant, they’re readily available in the UK. If you do a life cycle assessment such as WRAP’s glass versus PET, the carbon footprint is not that different. Glass is indefinitely recyclable, and it doesn’t lose purity from the closed loop.” Closed loop recycling is where a glass container is recycled into a glass container. But it occurs only where glass colours are kept separate, so mixed kerbside collections, which meet Local Authorities weight-based packaging reduction targets, do little to promote the best practice of closed loop recycling.  

It is plastics recycling which came on in leaps and bounds during 2008, especially for composite cartons. Prior to this, said Andy Dawe, WRAP’s head of retail programmes “even though PE (polyethylene), HDPE (high density polyethylene), and PET are recyclable, they tend to end up in landfill because there’s nowhere to recycle them. But In last few years, Local Authorities have put in the infrastructure for HDPE and PET bottles.  Over 90% of LAs now have plastic bottle collection facilities.”

And some plastics fit well the closed loop model.  Dawe said: “PET/HDPE can now be put into closed loop recycling system. About half a dozen new plants are under construction in the UK to process material.  Empty bottles currently go to Europe, are processed, and plastic pellets come back into the UK for re-use. ”

Recycling of composite cartons has long been an issue. The need to separate the card from the plastic from the metal creates challenges, and even up to the end of 2007, composite cartons were one of the ‘recyclable’ materials that couldn’t be recycled in the UK. Germany though, manages to recycle 65-70% of its cartons.

However, said Richard Hands, chairman of ACE UK, the trade association for composite cartons said “a huge amount has happened on collection. We had little collection a year ago. Now 83% of LAs have carton collections, run by the carton industry. We have used a paper mill in Sweden which was extracting the cardboard for plasterboard liner, and recovering the plastic and aluminium as energy to power the mill. We’re expecting to shift to a mill in Norway which has a fully recycling solution,” and which uses a high proportion of renewable energy. This, he said, more than offsets the transport costs from the UK in terms of life cycle impacts.

Sustainable Consumption Institute

Without comprehensive life cycle assessments which consider not just carbon footprints, but also wider sustainability issues, it is difficult to gauge the relative merits of one system/product over another, and decisions are never linear.

The Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) at the University of Manchester was set up last year, funded by Tesco, to look at some of the challenges. The SCI is undertaking academic carbon footprint studies on different types of drinks packaging – looking at industry averages for various types of packaging. Professor of sustainable chemical engineering, Adisa Azapagic, is leading this research. She said: “we’ve concentrated on the carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of the six main gases. Other sustainability aspects we are looking at include environmental impacts such as acidification, ozone layer depletion and eutrophication. But economic and social aspects are not included.

“The questions are very complex. This is industry average study,” Azapagic said, “you can come to opposite answers depending on what specific issues you took into account. When we do the specific pack analyses, the results could be different.

“And you can’t base decisions on one criterion. Image is important. If, for example, whisky manufacturers could be persuaded to bottle in green glass, we wouldn’t have a surplus of green glass in this country. 

In the end, consumers will decide their preferred packaging, and carbon footprints or wider sustainability and recycling issues may form only part of our buying behaviour.  Glass remains the favourite and it’s the only pack that’s fully inert, not requiring internal coatings. But, as with the screwcap initiative, industry is driving the innovation and watching what consumers like

RECYCLING CLOSURES

Closures make up only 1-2% of the total wine pack.

Alupro, the industry organisation said “The lacquer or coating is burnt off in the de-coater after shredding, before re-melting in the same way as the paint on the exterior.  The screw caps go off for reprocessing, via a metal processor to remove the plastic cap from inside the lids and then on for recycling.”

Amorim’s cork recycling trials in 2007 in the USA and Canada exceeded expectation.  Carlos de Jesus, director of communications said “we targeted 1 tonne in 12 months. In 8 months we’d already collected two tonnes. We were overwhelmed by the positive response, and we need to put in place the right logistics.”  He added: “In the UK, we’re in conversation with a leading retail chain to launch what will be the first natural cork recycling programme. We’ve established the CO2 impact of shipping corks back to mainland Europe and that impact makes the exercise worthwhile.”

The position on plastic stoppers is unclear.