Glass bottles have long conveyed (传递) a high-quality image for the wine they carry, but their carbon footprint is sizable. Fossil fuels are used to produce and recycle them. And when it comes to transport, they are also heavy and waste space.
But Packamama, an Australian packaging start up, has launched a range of flat wine-bottles, the first for the country, promoting them as an environmentally-friendly alternative to traditional glass. The bottles are made from 100 % recycled PET plastic. The slim, flat profile (外形) is 83 % lighter, and allows twice as many bottles to fit into a standard case. "Australia is home to the two most significant successful wine packaging innovations of the last century. Bag-in-box and screw cap (螺旋瓶盖), both from the mid-1960 s," says Santiago Navarro, Packamama's co-founder.
Three months after the first bottles hit the shelves, the data suggests flat-bottled wines are becoming popular with drinkers. Packamarna's first production order was for 65,000 units, a figure that has risen to 90,
000. The demand was so strong that they were sold out after the first production. Questions remain, however, about the flat-profile bottle's suit ability for high-quality wines. The wine maker Nicole Esdaile, of Cent Vineyard in Victoria's Yarra Valley, applauds the move but says it is not a workable option for her business, given its focus on classic, collectible wines typically exported to China. "Critically, they are not suitable for storing wine, with the recommended shelf life being no more than two years. The bottles are perfect for quick ‘drink-now' style."
The wine maker Tom Wallace wants to see how flat-bottled wines perform over the years ahead. "The priority for us is the quality of the wine going in, so the packaging has to reflect that and allow those wines to mature (酿成) in the best way possible. We will wait and see how the trials and research go before we jump on board."
