Plastic Bottles Being Used For Wine, Great
First boxed wine, then screwcaps, now this. Baltimore Sun reports that Maryland wineries and restaurants are thinking plastic bottles might be the way to go instead of big, clunky, impossible to efficiently ship glass.
Quoth the article:
“The wine doesn’t know what package it is in,” said W. R. Tish, a wine educator who writes a blog called Wineskewer. “It tastes the same whether it is in a plastic bottle, a plastic bladder inside a box, or a glass.”
I beg to differ. Plastic is more permeable than gas, so wine contained in plastic will oxidize faster. Wine may not know what it is packaged in, but air will figure it out and invade accordingly. Plastic will work fine for wine packged for short-term consumption. Anything longer than that and I’ll stick with my glass bottles and the Earth will have to deal with it.
Sorry, Earth.
Link to article.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I was surprised to see that plastic is permeable enough to allow oxidation of wine. This may be a stupid question, but what about the aseptic plastic containers, like Parmalat’s milk cartons?
Personally, I can see the appeal from both the environmental and economic standpoints. Obviously, we’re on the drinking end of the wine world, not the business end; is it conceivable that there could be a split system, where wines appropriate for cellaring still come in glass bottles, and the shorter-term wines are packaged in a more shipping- and planet-friendly way? Or would that just require too big of a shift in the thinking of the wine-drinking public?
August 20th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Nice. Which MD wineries are considering this?
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:18 am
@GrapeEnvyGuy Yeah I think that’s how they’re going, with plastic being used for the short term packaging.