On Monday, 07 January 2008, InterWined.com featured an article regarding the decision of South African winemaker ‘the company of wine people’ to package some of its Arniston Bay white and rosé wines in a pouch.

The article, In the Bag: Is Wine in a Bag a Good Idea?, noted that Arniston Bay had joined the list of winemakers seeking alternative packaging techniques with its 1.5 litre wine pouch (as well as new clear, lightweight glass wine bottles) and questioned the wine’s target market believing that most wine drinkers that currently snubbed boxed-wine or that purchased wine based on environmental awareness would forego wine in a bag for something with a more traditional appearance or with green credentials that included transportation and, specifically, maceration.

Following the article’s publication, Communications Manager for ‘the company of wine people’ Fidelia van der Linde sent an e-mail reply.

Although InterWined remains unsure of the wine pouch’s appeal beyond a very finite number of outdoor social occasions hosted and frequented by people pre-disposed to purchasing boxed wines regardless of the winemaker’s statistics or intended demographic (this wine isn’t going to appear at very many dinner parties), InterWined.com is sure of its commitment to good journalism and the right to reply.

As such, an unedited copy of Ms. van der Linde’s e-mail correspondence appears below:

I refer to your article “In the Bag: Is a Bag of Wine a Good Idea?” regarding the introduction of alternative wine packaging such as pouches.

The reason for our introducing pouches for Arniston Bay wines was as a result of customer research which indicated that convenience and environmental impact were highly important to younger (20 – 35 years) wine drinkers. The lifestyle benefits include the pouch maintaining the quality of wine for up to a month after it is opened due to a vacuum forming when the wine is tapped and so stopping oxygenation, easy portability, quick chilling and easy storage.

We fill the same quality of wine in bottles and pouches. UK consumer research showed that 71% of consumers felt the wine quality to be the same and 68% of our sample said they would consider buying or definitely buy the pouch.

Pouches are an environmentally acceptable alternative to packaging in bottles. The independently conducted life cycle analysis (LCA) done by PIRA was conducted on all stages of the life cycle of packaging of wines from Australia and South Africa sold in the UK and covered raw material extraction, transport, packaging manufacture, filling, disposal and recycling.

At each stage the LCA measured the energy and materials used, wastes generated, emissions released and other environmental impacts. The better environmental performance of the pouches is due mainly to glass bottles weighing around twenty times more than pouches. The South African developed Astropak we are using has 80% less of a carbon footprint and will take up 90% less space in a landfill compared to a glass bottle equivalent.

We are informed from the most recent statistics from the Department Environment of Food and Rural Affairs that only 47% of people recycle in the UK and globally this figure is estimated to be between 20-30%. The LCA above indicates that even if 100% of all glass is recycled the pouch will still be significantly better for the environment than glass.

That said, we believe in constantly seeking innovative ways to reduce damage to the environment through products with lower carbon emission levels. Our environmental efforts regarding glass include being in the process of changing our bottles from green to clear glass to increase their ability to be recycled in the UK and speaking to Waste and Resources Action Programme regarding changing from heavyweight to a lighter weight of glass according to their initiatives.

Kind regards
Fidelia van der Linde
Communications Manager
‘the company of wine people’

Like what you've read? Why not subscribe to InterWined.com and get the lastest posts delivered fresh to your feeder.