While the use of lightweight glass in the wine industry is nothing new, its recent rise in popularity is. The surge of interest is being driven primarily by issues related to cost and sustainability. Environmental factors have been contributing to this shift for some years; however, the recession has forced wineries to cut supply costs, and for many this means shifting their bottle weight.

Glass manufacturers are shaving as much as 12 to 28 percent off the weight of their standard bottle styles and are working to add new, lighter-weight molds to their portfolios. In many cases, using a lighter-weight wine bottle can save money when shipping bottles as well as on the price of the bottle itself.

COST

There are three potential sources of cost savings from using lighter bottles: reduced costs of buying bottles due to decreased production costs of the glass, reduced shipping costs when shipping empty glass from a glass distributor to a winery, and reduced shipping costs when shipping full glass from a winery to a consumer.

Buying costs. Purchase costs are reduced since fewer raw materials and less energy are used in glass production. According to one large glass supplier, who used the example of selling 5,000-boxed cases to a small winery, moving from a heavy bottle weight of 30 oz. (850g) costing an estimated $16 per case to a more moderately-weighted bottle of 23oz. (650g) costing an estimated $10 per case would save $6 per case. That could result in a savings of $30,000 just in glass.

Moving from a medium-weight bottle of 23 oz. (650g) to a lightweight bottle of 15.9 oz. (450g) costing an estimated $7.50 per case would save $2.50 per case--or $12,500 for all 5,000 cases. Larger wineries ordering greater quantities could be given a reduced price of around $5 per case for the same lightweight bottles. Due to varying production factors, however, cost savings are not necessarily proportional to changes in bottle weight.

Shipping costs of empty bottles. A second source of potential savings from using lighter bottles is reduced shipping costs when transporting empty bottles from a glass provider to a winery. Since transportation companies charge by the truckload, savings are realized because more cases of lighter glass are able to fit into a truckload. (The maximum number of cases in a truckload can be limited by either volume or weight).

Savings occur when changing from heavy to medium or heavy to lightweight glass (see chart). Given the above example, 1,867 cases of heavy bottles could be transported (assuming a cargo weight limit of 42,000 lbs.) compared to 2,435 cases of medium-weight bottles (a difference of 568 cases or 30 percent).

The crew at Tennessee-based Arrington Vineyards work the bottling line. President and winemaker Kip Summers uses all medium-weight bottles with wide punts. Photo by Jimmy Collins

The cost savings of moving from medium to lightweight glass, however, are minimal. Volume becomes more of an issue since a truck reaches its maximum case volume capacity (2,500 cases) before its weight capacity (42,000 lbs). Compared to the medium-weight load of 2,435 cases, shipping empty lightweight bottles reaches its volume maximum at 2,500 cases, showing a difference of 65 cases or just 3 percent in shipping costs.

Shipping costs of full bottles. When transporting full bottles of cased wine by truck, using lighter bottles can offer better fuel and cost efficiencies by allowing more bottles in a load. Bronco Wine Company is now using a new 10.5 oz. bottle for their Australian Chardonnay, Down Under. "We can get 14 percent more cases of wine on the same truck with the lighter bottles," said Fred Franzia, noting that they have lightened some of their bottles anywhere from 4 to 10 ounces.

For bottles that are up to 10 ounces lighter, Franzia says they can realize a savings of 9,000 pounds per truckload (or 4.5 tons). Obviously, the more shipping a winery does, the more cost will be a priority. This is especially the case with large wineries with a wide distribution.

Savings also add up when shipping full bottles through services such as FedEx. Shipping a case of wine 250 miles to a customer who came through a tasting room, based on FedEx 2-day shipping guidelines, would save an estimated $4.90 a case if shipping was done using medium weight 23oz. (652g) bottles instead of 30oz. (850g) bottles.

How Lighter Bottles Save Money (click to enlarge)

BOTTLE SIZE

When a wine bottle is designed to be lighter in weight, this is typically achieved by reducing the thickness of the glass. Depending on the desired image--punts are most often found in bottles of premium brands and less often in everyday value brands--the punt of the bottle may also be reduced or removed entirely.

When we talk about lightweight bottles we're speaking of degrees relative to what a winery is already using. A bottle that is considered lightweight for an ultra premium winery (that uses very heavy bottles) may seem heavy to another winery that uses a fairly medium-weight bottle. Shifts in bottle weights are generally from heavy to medium-weight or medium-weight to lightweight, but less often from heavy to light.

But can the consumer's eye tell the difference when their favorite brand's bottle gets lighter? One bottle supplier suggests that if the change is within a few ounces--say from 19oz. to 16oz.--the change does not usually register; but if the difference was five or more ounces, odds are that the change would be noticeable. But would consumers really care? That likely depends on a variety of factors, including price point, type of wine, other packaging features and how serious of a wine drinker the consumer is.

In terms of moving to a lighter-weight bottle, we're not making an extreme shift," said Julie Lumgair, winemaker for Windsor Oaks Vineyards & Winery in Windsor, California (1,500 annual cases). "I'd say we're moving from dark purple to light green on the rainbow; but we feel this will have a noticeable effect on improved sustainability, ease of labeling and shipping costs."

It can be a tricky decision to lighten up, since the size of the bottle does matter to certain consumers who equate bigger, heavier bottles with higher quality wine. It can be especially challenging for a lesser-known brand to avoid perceptions of low quality if the bottle resembles the lighter-weight bottles used with low-priced wines. "I think that older, consistently high-scoring wines can get away with lighter packaging if the brand is well established," said Lumgair.

Kip Summers, president and winemaker for Arrington Vineyards (13,000 annual cases) in Arrington, Tennessee, who already uses a moderate-weight bottle, prefers not to go too light for fear of sacrificing his customers' quality perceptions. He feels that the price point of a wine should dictate the weight of the bottle. With price points of around $20 per bottle, Summers feels that his medium-weight glass is a good fit.

"There is a certain expectation by consumers that a product at this price include a bit of heft, but just enough without getting stupid," said Summers, who feels that many high-priced wines go overboard with the weight of their bottles. Summers uses all medium-weight 21.8 oz. (620g) Bordeaux and Burgundy bottles with wide punts.

While consumers have historically equated a heftier bottle with higher quality, there are market exceptions, such as with younger consumers who do not seem to have this association. "Lighter bottles seem to resonate more with younger and green-minded consumers," said Lumgair.

ENVIRONMENT

The increased popularity of lightweight bottles has also been fueled by wineries' concerns for the environment, as well as a desire to project an eco-forward image to consumers, who are more frequently making eco-conscious buying decisions.

In addition to glass being easily recyclable, manufacturing lighter-weight bottles also saves resources (sand, soda ash, limestone, water), energy (gas and electricity to melt and form the glass) and packaging. According to one large glass manufacturer, lightweight bottles result in 20 percent less energy used during manufacturing, a 12-percent drop in water usage per container and a savings of almost 20,000 tons of glass packaging per year, all adding up to cost savings as well.

Fetzer Vineyards in Hopland, California, well known for its environmentally friendly efforts, has been trumpeting their shift to lightweight glass. The winery says that this change alone will result in a 14 percent reduced carbon footprint (a measure of the impact activities have on the environment). Lightening their 750mL bottles by 3.3 ounces (from 20.3 oz. to 17 oz.) will reduce their yearly glass usage by 16 percent, totaling more than 2,100 tons of glass.

Constellation Wines Australia has moved to using lightweight bottles for its Banrock Station red and white wines domestically (with a lightweight sparkling bottle expected to be developed early next year). "The environmental benefits generated by offering our wines in new lightweight bottles are unquestionably worthwhile," said Louise Thiele, senior brand manager.

AESTHETICS

Despite cost-cutting and environmental benefits, some feel that the sacrifice of aesthetic appeal is a bit too much. For this reason, many smaller wineries are not as eager to move to lighter-weight bottles. This disconnect has manufacturers working to create new lighter bottles in styles that offer pleasing prices as well as a high-quality appeal.

Most of the existing very lightweight designs are used primarily with value brands and often come with less aesthetic appeal (i.e., lighter color, thinner appearance, absence of a punt). At the other end of the range, heavier "ego" bottles, which have been a trademark of quality wine, already come in a multitude of shapes and styles. Therefore, much of the current push to go lighter is focusing on offering a wider variety of attractive options in the medium-weight range.

Another consideration with light-weighting bottles has to do with a change in the finish size. A larger finish size generally connotes a higher quality wine. Some wineries that wish to go lighter in their bottle weight are opting for larger finishes, as they feel they are achieving a smaller carbon footprint and saving money while still maintaining a desirable image.

For smaller wineries that sell the majority of their wine through tasting rooms, however, going too light can feel risky. Arrington Vineyards sells about 80 percent of its wines through its tasting room, so customers are seeing and feeling the bottles up close before they decide to buy or not.

"People associate higher quality wine with heavier glass, and they're not going to appreciate a $25 Cab in a lightweight bottle," said Summers. "But if someone is spending $10 on a bottle of wine, they're likely not worrying about the bottle."

Cost, environmental impact and image will all be likely factors in a winery's choice to move to lighter glass. Given the wine industry's desire to stand apart through packaging, embracing new styles and technologies related to lighter-weight wine bottles seems a natural. wbm

The carbon footprint of lightweight bottles

Karl Forsyth, a principal with Provisor, a leading Australian technical and engineering consultancy supporting the international wine, food and beverage industries, says that lighter bottles are expected to have a lower carbon footprint, both in bottle production and transport than their heavier counterparts. Through the use of Life Cycle Assessment (a tool used to analyze the impacts of wine production), Provisor can offer a look at the cradle-to-grave impacts of light-weighting glass.

Emissions associated with glass containers are roughly proportional to the container mass. "The significance of light-weighting depends on how much glass you are taking out of the container," said Forsyth. "If you remove 30 percent of the mass, you could get close to removing 30 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions."

When dealing with greenhouse gas emissions (CO_2e), Provisor typically uses an emission factor, which is a way of converting a product's mass or other key parameters into a carbon impact. For example, the emission factor associated with gasoline is about 20 lbs. CO_2e per gallon of fuel consumed.

For products, the same principle can be used; but there is a higher level of associated uncertainty. "When we talk about glass, not all glass factories are the same," said Forsyth. "Some are more efficient than others, some are larger, etc., so we have a degree of uncertainty associated with using a common emission factor." But as a general guide, an appropriate emission factor for glass is somewhere in the region of 1.0 -1.7 lbs. CO_2e/lbs. For every pound of glass produced there will be between 1- 1.7 lbs of CO_2e generated.

In production: In a very rough sense, you can use these numbers to identify the emissions associated with a wine bottle. We can use 1.4 lbs. CO_2e as the life-cycle emission factor, which is an approximation of the entire process of raw material extraction and refinement (sand, soda ash, limestone), glass production (including gas and electricity production to melt and form the glass) and final product disposal (a 30 percent recycling rate is included with the remainder of glass being disposed of in landfill). If we are using a 30.7 oz. bottle, and again use the emission factor of 1.4, then we get 1.4*(30.7oz) = 42.98 oz. CO_2e (or 2.7 lbs). If we are using a 23.9 oz. Bottle, we get 33.46 oz. CO_2e (or 2.1 lbs.), a difference of 9.5 oz or about 22 percent.

In transport: As for transporting bottled wine, let's say you were taking the wine from the Napa Valley to New York at a distance of 2,800 miles. Given that a pallet of wine normally contains about 768 bottles of wine; and on an articulated truck you might be able to fit 28 pallets (based on a maximum truck load of 39 tons). Using 30.7 oz. bottles would yield transport emissions of 1.24 lbs. per bottle or 952 lbs. per pallet. For a 23.9 oz. bottle, the transport emissions would be 1.19 lbs. per bottle or 914 lbs. per pallet, a difference of 38 lbs or about 4 percent.

Clearly, for wineries transporting wines far distances and in large amounts, their carbon footprints will be greatly reduced by using lighter-weight bottles. But every little bit adds up, and even smaller wineries over time can be a part of this positive change. wbm

Wine Bottle Manufacturers and Distributors

Company   Location   Phone   Web

All American Containers   Tampa, FL   813-248-2023   www.americancontainers.com

Amcor   Ann Arbor, MI   734-428-9741   www.amcor.com

Brick Packaging   Traverse City, MI   866-770-7600   www.brickpackaging.com

Bruni Glass Packaging   Benicia, CA   707-752-6200   www.bruniglass.com

Caliber WinePak   Benicia, CA   800-374-6594   www.caliberwinepak.com

California Glass   Oakland, CA   510-635-7700   www.calglass.com

Cameron Family Glass Packaging   Kalama, WA   360-673-8700   www.cameronfamilyglass.com

Carolina Wine Supply    Yadkinville, NC   336-677-6831   www.carolinawinesupply.com

Demptos Glass Company   Fairfield, CA   707-422-9999   www.demptos.com

Diablo Valley Packaging   Fairfield, CA   800-839-4680   www.dvpackaging.com

Encore Glass    Benicia, CA   707-745-4444   www.encoreglass.com

G. W. Kent   Ypsilanti, MI   800-333-4288   www.gwkent.com

Gallo Glass Company   Modesto, CA   209-341-4550   www.gallo-glass.com

Gino Pinto   Hammonton, NJ   609-561-8199   www.ginopinto.com

Global Discoveries   Mission Viejo, CA   866-946-3958   www.globaldiscoveries.net

Global Package   Napa, CA   707-224-5670   www.globalpackage.net

Hauser Packaging    Norfolk, MA   888-600-2671   www.hauserpack.com

International Packaging Supply   Fairfield, CA   707-425-9910   www.ipspkg.com

Kelman Bottles   Glenshaw, PA   412-486-9100   www.kelmanbottles.com

Owens-Illinois (O-I)   Perrysburg, OH   567-336-1042   www.o-i.com

Saint-Gobain Containers   Fairfield, CA   707-437-8700   www.sgcontainers.com

Saverglass   Napa, CA   707-259-2930   www.saverglass.com

Synergy   Santa Rosa, CA   707-541-6605   www.synergygp.com

Trilogy Glass & Packaging   Santa Rosa, CA   707-566-9000   www.trilogyglass.net

Vetri Speciali   Moraga, CA   888-216-1966   www.vetrispecialiusa.com

Vintners Global Resource   Fife, WA   253-517-4037   www.vintnersglobal.com

Vitro Packaging   Plano, TX   800-766-0600   www.vitro.com

Waterloo Container Company    Waterloo, NY   315-539-3922   www.waterloocontainer.com

Note: Many companies have multiple locations; call for more information about distribution in your area.

(Not included are wine bottle services, such as frosting, etching, silk-screening, etc.)   

Cathy Fisher lives in Sonoma and has been writing on the wine industry for five years.