Yellow + blue make green: a new organic malbec in TetraPak
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A new wine made from certified organic Malbec grapes will soon be available in the United States. But instead of a bottle, the wine will use lightweight packaging known as TetraPak, traditionally associated with juice boxes, in the name of lowering its carbon footprint.
Matthew Cain, regional sales director for fine wine importer Kermit Lynch for nine years, will be importing the wine through his new company, J. Soif. “Over a period of time I came to the realization that the wine business just doesn’t work,” he told me in a telephone interview last week. “Eighty percent of wine is drunk within a week. It doesn’t make sense to put nine liters of wine in a 40 pound box and ship it thousands of miles.”
So Cain, 38, looked to TetraPak. In other countries, he noted, “people are using alternative packaging to bring down the cost of wine. It’s not just for poor wine but for good wine. Here in the US, it’s only been used as a gimmick.” He added about his wine, “I’ve been in the fine wine trade my entire life and I have no interest in bad wine.”
Explaining his motivation, Cain said that he has seen wine prices go up, transportation prices go up, and that made him want to “bring a great wine to the market at a reasonable price.” His interest in environmental issues and research on this site about wine’s carbon footprint pushed him to make a sustainable wine from beginning to end.
Used his contacts in the fine wine business, he went to Argentina to find a producer growing certified organic grapes. The grapes were destined for bottled wine, not bulk wine, but Cain bought them. Instead of bottling the wine in Mendoza, he put them in a 24,000 liter flexitank. The wine was trucked over the Andes, loaded onto a ship on the Chilean coast, then shipped through the Panama canal and up to Montreal below deck in an insulated container (but not refrigerated). There it was trucked to Toronto where the TetraPak packaging material was waiting. Click on the map to the right to see the route.
The facility in Toronto is also certified organic. The wine is put in the one liter boxes that weigh 40 grams each (compared to 500 - 750g for a bottle) and loaded onto a truck for a warehouse in New Jersey. The total amount of wine will be about 10,000 nine-liter cases.
Using my carbon calculator, I ran the numbers on this wine, called “Yellow + Blue” (makes green–get it?). I figure that each 750 ml of Yellow + Blue Malbec has about half the greenhouse gas emissions of a conventional bottle of wine from Argentina that followed the same route.
The price will follow a similar discount: Yellow + Blue will sell for $10.99 in stores and Cain suggests that the same wine in bottle would sell for about $20. But Yellow + Blue, weighing in at one liter, holds a third more wine than a regular bottle. I look forward to trying it. Are you?
find this wine (release about May 1)
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On April 21st, 2008 at 8:39 am ,Michael wrote:
Hello. I’m a little curious about your calculation. Are the reduced greenhouse gas emissions due to only a weight reduction? Or did you also factor in that the new boxes may pack more efficiently? Just curious.
On April 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am ,Eric H. wrote:
Michael, it makes a lot of sense to avoid unnecessarily shipping the wine containers over thousands of miles. A glass wine bottle weighs almost as much as the wine it contains, so you can easily figure on shipping about twice as much wine for the same cost as shipping wine that is already bottled. So, it makes sense that the greenhouse emissions from shipping would follow suit, emitting about half as much for the same amount of wine.
This does not even consider the energy savings of the packaging itself, since it takes a tremendous amount of energy to make a glass bottle (even from recycled glass), compared to a paper/foil box.
I’m looking forward to trying this wine.
On April 21st, 2008 at 9:58 am ,vm wrote:
If the quote from the company:
“The price will follow a similar discount: Yellow + Blue will sell for $10.99 in stores and Cain suggests that the same wine in bottle would sell for about $20.”
was meant to suggest that 8$ of saving comes shipping savings, then that is demonstrably marketing bullshit. SEE: any under 8$ Argentinian non-tetra pack wine.
On April 21st, 2008 at 10:21 am ,Steve wrote:
What a great idea aside from the package’s graphics. It looks more like an industrial chemical or cleaning product. I hope that’s not the final design - I just can’t see consumers responding to it.
On April 21st, 2008 at 1:05 pm ,Dr. Vino wrote:
Hey Michael,
As Eric pointed out above, it’s based primarily on the weight. Instead of transporting glass around the world, a tetrapak of wine involves almost entirely transporting wine around the world. There’s a minor difference because of the organic viticulture and the fact that Yellow + Blue uses no oak barrels:
Here are my calculations for the efficiencies:
One liter Yellow + Blue = 1766g CO2e
YB normalized to 750ml = 1324g CO2e
reg 750 bottle from Arg = 2458g CO2e
so 54% of the C02e per ounce (or mL).
On April 21st, 2008 at 1:28 pm ,Michael wrote:
While I really don’t see myself switching to tetra pack wine anytime soon, I did have another question, if so much of wine sold really is in the value tier (or whatever the industry calls this bulk sector) and is really consumed so soon after purchase, then has it been considered or tried to have wine shipped in tanks and bottled here, I know even bordeaux wineries ship wine here for kosher processing. I don’t want my Lafite bottled in NJ, but what about Yellow Tail, et al.? I think that this would make the most sense and is currently practiced in the liquor and beer industries if I’m not mistaken. It might even benefit bulk wine to ship from California and bottle in a central Eastern hub which could then distribute throughout the East Coast and Europe. Or ship to Asia to meet the emerging demand of that market. We ship everything else in bulk, i.e. milk, petrol, etc. Once again, I really only wonder for the type of wine that sells massive amounts and is consumed quickly
However, as to actual cost saved by this design, that is another question, as a separate bottling facility would have to be run. And as for actual cost saved, the cost can’t be that high when California wines at the bargain tier can hit the East Coast for three bucks while still maintaining any profit margin, though perhaps type of shipping and refrigerated transportation come into play at a higher price point, I don’t really know.
On April 21st, 2008 at 2:29 pm ,Zinny wrote:
I am so excited about alternative packaging for wines getting a bigger presence in the US market. I would be even more excited to see this wine in a box .. but even so I will pick this up the very first time I see it.
We need more quality wines going into alternative packages. I’ve tried about every one I can find and have liked a couple of whites and 0 reds so far - and that is only because of what is *in* the package.
On April 21st, 2008 at 2:40 pm ,Kate wrote:
My problem here, is that though cost and greenhouse emissions are higher, the packaging must now go into a landfill, creating more solid waste. While a glass bottle can be recycled efficiently, a tetra-pak container cannot–it’s cardboard, foil, and plastic which has been pressed together in a way that it can never be separated or recycled, so it must simply be discarded. It’s certainly not a perfect option. Why does this wine maker need to ship his bottles at all? What’s wrong with being a regional wine?
On April 21st, 2008 at 2:47 pm ,MrTaz wrote:
As we’ve been seeing lately with much of the conventional wisdom regarding climate change, carbon footprints and green solutions, the easy answers are not always correct. The more you look at it the more complicated it all is.
Glass bottles can be recycled, but use energy and produce greenhouse gasses in the process. TetraPaks are lighter, therefore have a smaller footprint when shipping, but are they recyclable, reusable, or biodegradabale, and what goes into making them? Shipping wine (at least “everyday” wines) in bulk makes a lot of sense, especially if the repackaging (can’t say bottling) occurs in an efficient, sustainable plant that’s centrally located for its market. Why is this particular wine being packed in Toronto and then trucked to a NJ warehouse? This certainly adds to its carbon footprint, and with the US $ now cheaper than the Canadian $, can’t be justified by lower costs either. Is the 24,000 liter flexitank refrigerated during its journey (a la Kermit Lynch)?
My head is spinning! I need a glass of wine.
Ultimately, if the wine is good, it will be successful. When do we get to taste it?
On April 21st, 2008 at 3:17 pm ,Pleiades wrote:
Kate-
Actually tetra can be recycled in certain regions like New York, but unfortunately not everywhere. Still, the overall impact of glass on the environment, from production to shipping, is still more severe. Look to emerging options like PET to make inroads into the wine trade for this reason (although as a petrochemical product, it is also flawed).
Regional wine consumption is a great idea….provided you live in a region that is capable. Here in MD where I live, we have some passable things to drink, but I’m not sure what I’d do if I lived in Minnesota or Ohio. Or Alaska. Part of the resistance in my neck of the woods is that hybrids bred for our weather are unfamiliar to the consumer, who is unwilling to try them (Vidal, Chambourcin). The winery then feels complelled to make something familiar like Cabernet and Merlot, which generally tend to suck, thus turning off the consumer who DID take home a bottle.
On April 21st, 2008 at 3:22 pm ,Pleiades wrote:
Mr. Taz-
AS I understand it, here are only a few tetra-pak facilities in N. America, and the Canada one is the only one on the eastern seaboard that is certified organic. Hence the need to package there and ship to NJ, a major distribution hub for the rest of the country. Also, Canuckistan is major consumer of wine in tetra-pak, so I suspect that a portion of the production could be shipped straight to the state distribution facility from the packaging place.
On April 21st, 2008 at 7:19 pm ,A.Alaalas wrote:
Errors in your shopped/fictional blog:
1. most shipping is by volume, not weight,
2. the carbon-balance advantage of tetrapak over glass not substantiated,
3. Michael’s Lafitte is $500/bottle, might as well LearJet it in,
4. glass-bottled wine (even screwcapped) is classy - cardboard wine is not ;
5. Q: how to rid earth of carbon-footprint? A: nuke china and/or india or sumpin’…..
On April 23rd, 2008 at 6:53 am ,Melissa A. Dobson wrote:
Organic grapes, more environmentally friendly, 1/3 more wine than a regular liter–I’ll try it! This would make a good addition to my every day wine rotation.
On April 23rd, 2008 at 8:05 am ,Dr. Vino wrote:
If you like this topic, check out the thread about this wine on BoingBoing Gadgets. Some worthwhile comments there, including a link to the current affairs of the TetraPak heirs!
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/04/21/selling-wine-in-tetr.html
On April 23rd, 2008 at 10:53 am ,Dr. Vino wrote:
It just occurred to me that it would be great if producers or importers included the mass (weight) of the packaging in grams somewhere on the label, front or back. It would be more interesting than the sulfites warning!
On April 24th, 2008 at 9:54 am ,Eric H. wrote:
Alaalas:
Shipping may be charged by volume and not weight, but the physics say that the energy required to move something is definitely by mass regardless of volume.
If you are shipping 25,000 kg, it takes the same energy whether it’s 25,000 kg of wine or 12,500 kg of wine plus 12,500 kg of glass. It is therefore half as costly per liter of wine using this method.
On your 3rd point, I’d probably go with a Gulfstream since it’s a much nicer plane for the same money.
On April 28th, 2008 at 3:08 pm ,A wine vending machine? Pennsylvania could see them soon | Dr Vino's wine blog wrote:
[...] before heading to Borders? Malbec and a movie? I wonder if they will have stemware. Or perhaps TetraPak wine so the bottle doesn’t break while being [...]
On April 30th, 2008 at 7:25 pm ,Shana Ray wrote:
A malbec in a box… I love it! Sounds intriguing. The other day I tried the Three Thieves Bandit Cabernet in a tetrapak and I was not impressed. I hope this one is better.
On April 30th, 2008 at 10:44 pm ,Pangaya Blog » Blog Archive » Yellow + Blue Organic Box Wine wrote:
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