American Winery Blog

Aluminum can via itchys

Of all the devices humankind has utilized to carry and preserve wine, it’s interesting that glass has become the end-all, be-all of containers. We’ve had ceramic containers, animal skins, and other capsules which, relative to glass, seem quite primitive. However, mankind can now split atoms, send people into outer-space, and clone living creatures both large and small.

So, does glass still provide the best receptacle for vino?

After hearing of Volute’s innovative new aluminum bottles and reading up on their website,  I couldn’t help but notice some of the great advantages:

• Aluminum is 100% recyclable, can be recycled an infinite amount of times, thereby contributing to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
• Protects the wine from light, which accelerates the (bad) aging process.
• Bottles are unbreakable
• The volute bottles weigh 4 times less than glass bottles. This generates 30% less carbon emissions than transporting the same volume of wine in glass bottles not to mention the money you’ll save by shipping a lighter package.
• Screw caps prevent unwanted oxidation better than natural cork.

All of the aforementioned points are incredible advances, but what are the downsides?

Some may be minor and purely superficial. Gone is the romance that comes with inspecting the wine through translucent glass and pulling the cork out with suave finesse. But how far can cosmetic differences be stretched before giving in to a more financially sensible option?

The one aspect I’d like to see Volute tackle is a 750 ml bottle. Currently, they are only offering wine in their 187 ml sized bottle (roughly 1/4 the volume of a full bottle). The reason behind the smaller bottle size is Volute’s target market, namely people with active lifestyles who are camping, taking trips to the beach, or simply don’t want to open an entire bottle for their wine fix (drinking with stemware is optional as well).

The company currently has three different wines to choose from which are for sale on their website.

- Volute Red Bordeaux (85% Merlot and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon),
- Volute White Bordeaux (85% Sauvignon Blanc and 15% Sémillon),
- and the Volute Rosé Bordeaux (85% Cabernet Sauvignon and 15% Merlot).

I’m not sure if aluminum’s time to be accepted as a glass substitute is near. In fact, it might be far off. But, I think it at least has a place next to boxed wine as a sensible option for winemakers and wine-drinkers to choose from.

Why? That is my question. Why use styrofoam (expanded polystyrene foam) packaging? Granted, not everybody cares about the environment. Some say that styrofoam takes 900 years to decompose. Others say 2,000. What do I think? WE DON’T KNOW! This material was developed in the 1940’s. Maybe if Jesus had thought of it and started a landfill, we would know. But in truth, maybe it doesn’t decompose. It is completely resistant to oxidation and is artificial. No known organisms can or will eat it.

via flickr.com

Back in the Golden Age of the oil industry, when oil fields seemed bottomless and locations for landfills boundless, we thought,”sure, why not?” It’s cheap to make, light, and even has great insulating properties. What better than this to keep your coffee warm an extra 30 minutes? But these same qualities which had once put styrofoam on a pedestal soon created a problem. These were not really economic problems, mind you, but logistical ones. And those most effected were not the producer nor the consumer (which is one of the reasons that we still produce and use this material at a staggering rate).

The problem: what to do with all this crap? It is extremely costly to recycle, cheap to produce (so why go the extra step to reuse, right?), and even when thrown away it is problematic because it takes up so much space (after all, it is 98% air).

But even though I wish I had a solution for the many tons and acres of styrofoam landfills, this is not the purpose of my post. I am here to ask why it is still used for wine shipments, and if I am not proven wrong in the comments of this post, to tell you to stop.

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On average, it takes anywhere form 6 months to 2 years from grapes on the vine to wine in the bottle.  It takes three to five days to ship to its destination, and about one day to drink.  The time it takes the styrofoam packaging used to ship the wine to decompose? 900 years.

Is your wine worth 900 years of decomposition?

“Take Pride in America” via katmere

Styrofoam, more accurately called foamed polystyrene, has taken a beating over the last few years for its reputation of unrecyclability and the environmental damage it causes. Yet we still see polystyrene on a daily basis; coffee cups, takeaway containers, and wine packaging all utilize its durability and low cost.  Prior to today I had no clue what polystyrene was or how it is made so I decided to do a little digging and find out for myself and other ADHD minded people (read: the entire internet).

What is Styrofoam? The short answer is the extraction of a product from crude oil called polystyrene. What does that mean? Polystyrene is the material, Styrofoam is the patented name for the product that Dow chemical company manufactures.  What we commonly call styrofoam is, in fact, not Styrofoam.  The form that we see on a daily basis is made from a different material which has moisture resistant and insulating properties for use in pipe insulation, floral products and building materials.  The foam in coffee cups and the like is made from expanded polystyrene beads.

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