Comments on: Carbon footprint: should wine be shipped in bulk tanks?

By: Nine wines under $10 | Dr Vino's wine blog

Nine wines under $10 | Dr Vino's wine blog — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:11:10 +0000

[...] Mendoza, makes the wine on location, then ships it back to California for bottling and an admirably reduced carbon footprint. The cost-savings results in a wine of character, with good fruit and a pleasant and unusual level [...]

By: Math

Math — Thu, 31 May 2007 20:16:19 +0000

You’re kidding me.

People drive to and from work every day, and read this blog post on computers and monitors totalling 100-150W of power (many of which are left on all day every day), or perhaps reading this on a flight across the continent on their laptops and we’re worrying about the CO2 footprint of our wine habits?

Ridiculous. I cant think of a better example of people trying to feel good about fixing their Co2 footprint while actually not doing anything tangible.

Stop driving! Stop flying! Stop supporting huge racks of servers that run this blog and chew up 150W per machine! Then we’ll worry about wine.

By: Dr Vino’s wine blog » Blog Archive » Nine wines under $10

Dr Vino’s wine blog » Blog Archive » Nine wines under $10 — Thu, 31 May 2007 14:09:23 +0000

By: Dr. Vino

Dr. Vino — Tue, 29 May 2007 00:47:06 +0000

Ha Paul. Indeed. This WRAP paper has gotten a lot of press about how bulk shipment reduces the carbon footprint but nobody talks about the quality! Your comment makes this point succinctly.

By: Paul Sharp

Paul Sharp — Mon, 28 May 2007 07:15:16 +0000

I’m being rather flippant but you could remove most of the water and ship as concentrate. This would be even more efficient.

By: Dr. Vino

Dr. Vino — Wed, 23 May 2007 02:18:57 +0000

ha yes – ironically, in a pre-carbon era.

But into the carbon era too. The negociant scandals from the 1970s really swung the pendulum back toward estate bottling.

By: mph

mph — Wed, 23 May 2007 01:09:19 +0000

Didn’t they used to do that with Bordeaux? Send it by ship in barrel to England, and bottle it there?

By: Dr. Vino

Dr. Vino — Tue, 22 May 2007 23:19:43 +0000

ho ho ho – a tanker of Brunello. Yes, I think we should be most carbon efficient with that one and deliver it all to my house!

As I said, I’m skeptical. But that Terra Rosa is good. So it can be done. Whether it should be done is an open question. I think I’d rather take my carbon footprint into my own hands and, say, not drive to the store, but still buy estate bottled wine.

By: JB

JB — Tue, 22 May 2007 20:06:58 +0000

Eco-conscious as I like to consider myself, it’s hard to imagine that all wines would end up as intended if shipped this way and bottled at the destination country. Can you imagine a Brunello, which is aged in barrel for years and then in bottle for a significant period of time, being able to keep its integrity if transported in this manner? This seems plausible only for super-large production/bulk wine (what you call entry level) but for smaller and artisinal producers? I’m pretty open to new concepts and I’m not a total terroir-ist, but this notion seems a bit drastic to me and removes the sense of place from wine in far too many senses, literally, figuratively, and otherwise.