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Plastic, aluminum find small but growing place

BOISSET FAMILY ESTATES TO RELEASE LITER BOTTLE; EASIER ON ENVIRONMENT

SAUSALITO – Boisset Family Estates, the France-based parent company of De Loach Vineyards in Russian River Valley, is continuing to transition some of its wines from glass to plastic and aluminum bottles to explore new markets and reduce its footprint on the environment.

In late November, Boisset plans to launch a California wine in a one-liter polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, oxygen-barrier plastic bottle made by Philadelphia’s Constar International, which popularized two-liter soft-drink bottles in the 1970s. Fog Mountain, made from certified organic Sonoma County grapes, will retail for nearly $13 a bottle, or $10 for a standard 750-milliliter bottle.

The company learned with the August release of its Louis Bernard AOC Bonus Passus Cotes du Rhone and Yellow Jersey pinot noir and sauvignon blanc wines in 750-milliliter bottles that consumers perceived the bottles to be smaller than others on store shelves. That was reinforced when they picked up the bottles, which are 42 percent lighter than those made of glass.

“It’s very true that we have to overcome a lot of comments and perception,” said President Jean-Charles Boisset from the U.S. office in Sausalito.

The company has been on the cutting edge of wine packaging design for its use of TetraPak carton-style wine boxes, aluminum bottles and now full-sized plastic bottles among 25 brands in the family’s portfolio.

Currently, the De Loach brand remains in glass with a screwcap finish, but packaging innovations will come to that brand too, according to Mr. Boisset. Meanwhile, Beringer’s Stone Cellars, Fetzer and Sutter Home released single-serving 187-milliliter plastic bottles in the past year.

Part of the perception issue for other-than-glass bottles and other-than-cork closures over the past two decades has been the association with inexpensive, poor-quality wine.

For Boisset, the shift to plastic and aluminum containers was the third step in a process toward becoming more environmentally conservative. The family has about 700 acres of vines worldwide, and the majority is certified organic, including De Loach’s vines earlier this month. Next, use of energy, water and materials was reduced and shifted to sustainable options.

After studying the supply chain from bottle factory to post-consumer recycling, the company determined that one roll of flattened TetraPak cartons on a truck would replace 25 truckloads of glass and that PET bottles arrive as thumb-size pieces at plants nearby wineries and are blown into shape, cutting emissions related to production and transportation of glass in half.

Alternative packaging has been growing considerably in wine industry usage in recent years, helped by demographic shifts toward convenience packaging such as screwcaps, spouts, cartons and hard-to-break containers for older and younger, active consumers, according to Paul Tinknell, whose Healdsburg-based firm has been studying the market for dominant bag-in-box bladder maker Scholle Corp. of Chicago.

Though they remain a small fraction of total wine packaging, alternatives to glass may end up in a mix of brand solutions, similar to Coca-Cola’s use of plastic, aluminum and steel canisters to deliver its soft drinks to target venues, according to Mr. Tinknell.

Sales of wine in three-liter boxes jumped by 49 percent in volume and 6 percent in revenue from May 2007 to the same month this year, according to Mr. Tinknell. Meanwhile, sales of wine in the popular 250-milliliter TetraPak size increased 80 percent in the same period with a 49 percent increase in revenue. That said, he noted that the slice of all wine sales bag-in-box and TetraPak command is 1.1 percent and 0.1 percent, respectively.

“Glass and cork will continue to be used for fine wines that need to age and are being collected,” Mr. Tinknell said, pointing out that two-thirds of wine sold worldwide is not thought to fit into that category.

With most of his wines in the $9 to $15 a bottle category, Mr. Boisset is looking to spend more money on winemaking than packaging. “Seventy percent of the cost of wine goes into packaging instead of the wine,” he said. “Our philosophy is to reverse that.”