Foster’s Group wine label Wolf Blass will become the first winemaker in Australia to market part of its range in plastic bottles in a bid to capture a slice of the green market.
Wolf Blass launches the new Green Label plastic bottled wine series today with claims that it produces 29 per cent less in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than traditional glass bottles.
The company says the new PET bottles are also 90 per cent lighter than industry standard glass bottles. The company will back the launch with a $1million advertising and in-store sampling campaign over the next three months.
Global brand director Oliver Horn admitted to being nervous about how consumers might react to the new packaging after spending three years developing it in Canada.
"We are nervous and excited," Mr Horn said. "I think consumers might be sceptical about wine in PET bottles and probably a little suspicious."
He said that the technology allowed the wine to remain in the bottle for 12 months with no impact on the flavour, aroma or colour.
Along with tastings, Wolf Blass will monitor feedback on the launch every month for the next year.
The company has worked on barrier technology that stops oxygen seeping into the PET bottles over time — something that was seen as a major hurdle to adopting plastic as packaging.
However, he said the broad acceptance of screw caps on premium wine bottles after a period of scepticism was a signal that consumers would embrace the change.
"With the screw cap there was a lot of scepticism and people talked about the romance of the popping of the cork and that sort of thing, but people overcame that," he said. "We see this as a similar solution."
Australia has had a mixed reaction to changes to traditional packaging of alcohol over time.
While the nation embraced the "bag in a box" wine cask revolution in the 1970s, moves to market beer in PET bottles in the 1990s were less successful — although they still make appearances at large events such as music festivals, where glass is frowned upon.
Mr Horn admitted the Green Label launch was seen as a packaging experiment by the winemaker, rather than an attempt at "greenwashing" the brand, or making claims of being environmentally friendly that could not be supported.
"(Green Label) production represents less than 1 per cent of our total production," he said. "Initially for us it is a trial of new technology."
The claims on reduced greenhouse gas emissions follow a "lifecycle assessment" of the wine and packing process.
Labels will also be made from 100 per cent recycled material.
Mr Horn said the new lines were not intended for cellaring, but to be consumed within 48 hours of purchase.
While the use of PET bottles is limited to the new lines, Mr Horn has not ruled out extending their use to other lines if they prove popular.
Drinking up to half a glass of wine per day can help you live up to five years longer — at least for men, according to a study published today.
The impact also depends on the exact amount drunk — more than half a glass starts bringing life expectancy down again, according to researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
‘Drinking wine was strongly associated with a lower risk of dying from coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and death from all causes,’ said the study.
Effects varied, however: men who drink up to 20 grammes of any type of alcohol per day live for about two years longer than non-drinkers, while the length of time is slightly lesser for those drinking more than 20 grams.
Those drinking only wine, and less than half a glass a day, lived some 2.5 years longer than those who drank beer and spirits, and almost five years longer than non-drinkers, said the study.
The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, was based on research on some 1,373 men between 1960 and 2000. It did not draw conclusions for women.
The researchers studied how much alcohol they drank and what type, in an attempt to assess the impact of their drinking habits on cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, and from all causes.
They also tracked weight and diet and whether the men smoked.
The results held true regardless of socio-economic status, diet or lifestyle, it found.
One finding which might seem surprising: the proportion of men drinking alcohol nearly doubled over the four decades, from 45 percent in 1960 to 86 percent in 2000.
The proportion of those drinking wine skyrocketed, from two percent to 44 percent over the period.
A British honeymoon couple from Hong Kong have paid what is believed to be a record price for a bottle of New Zealand wine.
They shelled out $1000 for a bottle of Gibbston Valley Wines’ world champion 2000 Pinot Noir at Gantley’s Restaurant near Queenstown.
Now a rare find, the standard 750ml bottle came highly recommended at the restaurant, where there are only four or five bottles of the treasured drop remaining.
Restaurant co-owner Brent Rands told the Southland Times the last bottle he sold was last year for $750 and with very few bottles remaining he increased the price to $1000 in January.
"I thought it’s getting so scarce now, if it’s gonna go, it’s gonna go…"
Gibbston Valley Wines managing director Mike Stone said yesterday the wine’s latest feat "felt pretty good".
"To the best of my knowledge it’s the first (750ml) bottle by a New Zealand producer that’s ever sold for $1000."
The wine sold at the cellar door for just $65 eight years ago, Mr Stone said.
Austrian wine producers have voiced concerns over the new law on employment of foreigners.
A recent change in the law means unskilled foreign labourers have to be employed for 40 hours a week instead of a more-flexible 20 hours.
Wine producers have lambasted the government’s plans as having nothing to do with reality.
Since wine production takes place only at certain times of the year, producers were happy to employ workers from Slovenia and other Eastern European countries in a flexible way, when they were needed. The recent change in the law has made that impossible.
Willi Sattler from Styria, who employs between 15 and 20 Slovenes at certain periods in the year, said ‘we are forced to react to the seasons and the weather. We cannot employ workers for 40 hours independent of when wine production takes place.’
Styrian wine producers are planning to call on the government to repeal the change in the law.
The Austrian wine industry reported two weeks ago that sales of expensive domestic wines had been soaring abroad despite the global economic crisis that had also hit Austria.
While the market for many luxury goods has crashed during the recession, Austria exported wine worth 111 million Euros last year, up seven per cent from the previous year, with expensive, bottled wine comprising 97 million Euros of that amount.
Germany, which took 57 per cent of the exports, was by far the largest foreign market.
The maker of a sparkling wine promoted by Paris Hilton has refuted reports he is set to axe the heiress as his brand spokesperson.
Cans of the socialite’s sparkling wine, Rich Prosecco, are failing to sell – with more than 30,000 units being sold off at an auction in Stockport, England.
However, Austrian owner Guenther Aloys is adamant the drink’s poor sales have nothing to do with Hilton’s endorsement.
Aloys has already lined up several other projects with the star.
‘We have several new campaigns that are already being planned,’ he said.
‘She is the perfect advert for our product.’
Concerns about water supplies are said to be deterring investment in Tasmania’s wine industry.
A reduction in this year’s wine grape harvest has highlighted the need for more growers to become established in the region.
Grape volumes are down by as much as half on last year’s record vintage of 9,000 tonnes with the reduction being blamed on water shortages and a colder than usual December.
But vineyard owner Fred Peacock says the trade off has improved quality.
‘To have the slightly lower crops means we can get the full flavour in those grapes,’ he said.
Local winemaker Julian Alcorso said that with demand for Tasmanian wine outstripping supply, there is room for more growers in the market.
‘We still need one or two more big vineyards, big producers,’ he said.
‘But water availability is holding the industry back.’
UK off-trade wine sales fell sharply over the course of last year, due in part to the credit crunch, a British tabloid has reported.
According to The Sun newspaper, Britain’s pub and club-goers bought 12 million fewer bottles of wine last year, a drop of 1%.
Supermarkets, convenience stores and garage forecourts also reported big falls.
The credit crunch is being singled-out as a major contributor to the decline, as well as grape prices rising as the value of the pound plummets, and Chancellor Alistair Darling’s decision to raise duty on alcohol.
Trade magazine The Grocer said that in the 12 months to March, convenience stores and garage forecourts sold six per cent fewer bottles, while off-licences recorded a nine per cent downturn in volume and six per cent fall in sales value.
Recently, the chairmen of the UK’s major drinks industry trade associations met Mr Darling and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson to call on the Government not to raise drink taxes in this month’s Budget.
A spokesman for the Wine and Spirit Trade Association said the industry had reached a ‘tipping point.’
‘The truth of the matter is that the last year has been very testing indeed. We’ve had the market increase in excise duty and at the same time the Chancellor has announced the tax escalator.’
‘We are not asking for handouts but as an industry we are asking that we are not punished.’
Bulgarian wine producers enjoyed mixed fortunes in 2008 according to official figures released from the government press office.
Production levels were up 3%, to a total of 138,979,915 litres of wine, while the population of eight million enjoyed an average of 5.9 litres of wine per capita.
Exports, accounting for around 80% of all wine produced, fell slightly with Russia buying less than in previous years.
Figures for imported wine stood at 7,343,627 litres.
To cope with the challenges facing the Bulgarian wine-making industry, the state has launched a national programme for assistance of the wine industry, running between 2009 and 2014.
The launch, announced in February 2009 , is as a joint effort by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the State Fund Agriculture.
The programme aims to support Bulgarian vine-growers with a subsidy of up to 8040 leva a hectare, which it is hoped will cover up to 75% of production costs.
Spain has overtaken France as the world’s second largest volume exporter of wine, sitting behind tightly Italy it was reported this week.
According to figures released by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) on Tuesday, Spanish wine exports reached 16.5 million hectolitres (435.9 million U.S. gallons) in 2008, a world market share of 19 percent, compared with 15 percent for France at 13.6 million hectolitres.’
"France has suffered from a series of unlucky harvests," OIV Director General Federico Castellucci said.
"Last year, was the worst harvest since 1991."
France had been in second position after Italy in 2007 with 15.2 million hectolitres, compared with 15.1 million for Spain.
Despite the volume figures, France remains the world’s largest exporter of wine in terms of value and is wine’s biggest consumer, but it has sharply reduced its wine production in the last two years.
California based E&J Gallo is launching a new male-oriented wine brand into the UK market.
‘Redwood Creek’ is to be rolled out across both the UK on and off-trade markets after some success in the US, where the brand is said to be worth 2m cases.
‘It is targeted at 35 to 65-year-old men and will fill a gap in the market for a red wine oriented brand’, said Iain Newell, Gallo’s European marketing director.
‘Following extensive consumer research we have developed a second premium wine offering from California, as we believe there is a gap in this area of the market,’ he said.
The brand will seek to emphasise the ‘great outdoors’, and associations with the Woodland Trust, outdoor clothing label Regatta and the Californian Tourist Board are in the pipeline.
The initial range will consist of two reds, a Merlot and a Cabernet Sauvignon, and one white wine, a Chardonnay.
