First the Wine Box, Now the Plastic Wine Bottle?

Filed in archive Wine News on July 26, 2007

Over the past year or so, several wine companies such as Trove, Black Box, and Hardy's have been trying to make the "wine box" (or cask as marketers prefer to call it) a little more upscale. Honestly, I don't think it's caught on here in the United States. Many people look at a wine cube and assume lesser quality. So when I read that UK-based Sainsbury's will be soon be packaging some of its best-selling wines in plastic bottles, I immediately wondered how this would (or wouldn't) catch on.

From Daily Mail:

The supermarket insists that the new containers - made of recyclable PET - look exactly the same as conventional bottles, but are just an eighth of the weight. Not only are they easier to carry, less energy is used to make and transport them. The supermarket also says they are safer - and will bounce when dropped onto a hard floor rather than smash.

The move follows the introduction of PET bottles by Wolf Blass, one of Australia's biggest exporters of wine.

Its plastic bottles of wine went on sale in Canada last year and will be available in Britain in a few weeks.

"The new wine bottle looks exactly the same as a glass bottle, holds the same amount of liquid and doesn't compromise the quality of the wine in any way," said a spokesman for Sainsbury's.

The article points out that the plastic bottles will be ideal for picnics and outdoor festivals that don't allow glass containers. It also points out that it is unlikely that higher-end wines (especially wines that are meant to be cellared) will ever be bottled in plastic.