It’s been hardly a decade since the long-maligned metal screw cap started appearing on quality wines, and during that short time, many wine enthusiasts have moved from snobbish rejection to closer analysis and on, for many, to enthusiastic acceptance of a wine bottle closure that cannot impart cork “taint.”

Now get ready for the next big thing: With consumers, manufacturers and governments world-wide looking much more closely at the “carbon footprint” of consumer goods in an age of environmental concerns and rising fuel costs, the glass wine bottle is coming under critical scrutiny.

“Glass is one of the heavier packaging materials, which has made wineries investigate alternatives,” reporter Jo Burzynska wrote last month in The New Zealand Herald. Just as wine makers Down Under were first to embrace alternative closures, this same region – around the world from export markets in North America and Europe – may take the lead in ditching glass in favour of lightweight wine containers.

South African wine producers were the industry leaders in this field and the wine pouch were one of the first environmentally friendly packaging solutions.

Developed at some cost by the company of wine people^TM the pouch was a world first in terms of eco- friendly packaging.

The pouch offers an environmentally friendly solution to wine packaging, creating 80% less environmental impact from cradle to grave than the equivalent volume in glass bottles, 90% less waste and takes up less space in a landfill than two glass bottles. It is also 20 times lighter than a wine bottle and preserves the wine for up to a month once opened.

Sources: wineloverspage.com