The Green Room

Raise a glass (and a lighter bottle) for sustainability

By Jason Fremstad on February 23, 2012 1 comment

Being interviewed by a magazine – that was a first. Wine Business Monthly wanted to talk with me about the moves we made in 2011 to reduce the amount of glass used in our Oak Leaf label.

Every year we go through a review process with The Wine Group, the company that produces our Oak Leaf label.  Together we look at all the variables that can make a penny’s difference to a bottle of wine:  What was the yield from the harvest? Did taxes go up or down? What were labor costs?

The move that received the most attention from the wine industry was removing the punt from the bottle – that dimple or indention you see on the bottom.  The newly designed flat-bottom bottles weighed 25 percent less than standard wine bottles. At the same time, we used more recycled paper in the wine labels, and redesigned the case shipper to use less corrugated paper.

The new bottles were tested early in 2010.  After getting a thumbs up from customers, we quickly brought them to full production and started selling them in April at a price of $2.77 a bottle.

Less glass.  Less paper.  Lower cost.

The project was a big win for the environment, Walmart and The Wine Group.

Cheers to that!