The Refillable Bottle Saga Continues
But really: Why does it have to be so hard?
Several years ago, I met a charismatic and deeply passionate woman named Caren, who founded a company called Conscious Container. If nothing else, the nifty 3-C alliteration was enough to beckon me. All kidding aside, Conscious Container was set to full-on disrupt wine packaging by bringing a circular economy solution to the California wine industry via washable, refillable and reusable glass bottles. I was obsessed, and I asked Caren then, circa 2020 — five years ago! — “HOW IS THIS NOT YET A THING?!”
Caren whistled in that “Ooooh, boy, settle in!” style, before launching into myriad infrastructure and logistics and legislation obstacles, while my eyebrows furrowed deeper and deeper. Logistics, barf.
I caught my own whiff of the logistics involved when my (then) two wine shops, Bay Grape, collaborated with Snowden Vineyards’ special 2021 Cousins Merlot release, which was designed for bottle return, wash and re-fill. Through our wine clubs and shelves, we sold 40 cases and received back just shy of 40% of the bottles, which the fabulous Susanne Snowden herself would periodically come to collect. But even for our mean, green, Bay Grape guests and teams, the collection, rinsing, and storage logistics were often a bit inane. Case in point: There’s an 11-email-long thread debating whether to store empties upright or upside down, inside or outside the shop, in cardboard boxes or milk crates, etc. Our landlord even got involved and warned us we couldn’t store boxes of “trash” on-site like that.
As I lamented: barf.
Conscious Container quietly bowed out of the game in 2024, after seven valiant years of tirelessly pushing this boulder up a hill environmental envelope. When I first learned of the company’s fold, it felt like just icing on the poo-cake of The Big 2024 Wine Industry Narrative. But my head was so down, just trying to keep it all together, I didn’t bother to read the epilogue…
Which, perhaps, isn’t an epilogue at all, but the main heart of the story, with Conscious Container having merely been a prologue:
Our scene opens today, then, with Revino, an Oregon-based start-up that’s formally taken the reusable bottle program reigns from Conscious Container and may very well be the future of fine wine packaging. Founders Adam Rack and Keenan O’Hern have already established a successful re-use program in Oregon that collaborates with over 100 wineries in the Beaver State, and in this exact moment, they’re amped up to expand that positive impact—impact that has the power to take a whopping 85% of carbon emissions out of the wine industry picture. As I caught up with Adam and his colleague Callie Edwards this week, they were waiting to hear back about a $17 million grant application. Said CalRecycle grant (it’s called the Reusable Beverage Containers Infrastructure Grant… say it three times fast!) would allow Revino to purchase bottle-washing equipment to service both northern and southern California, with facilities they’d open in the Napa/Sonoma and Los Angeles areas.
I asked them the same question I asked Caren five years ago:
HOW IS THIS NOT YET A THING?
Adam [laughing]: Well, we agree, which is why we’re doing this. But the answer is that it’s simply not nearly as easy as collecting bottles, washing them out, and refilling them.
Why not? Why can’t you just do that? Take me through the entire process and the challenges, soup to nuts, so I can understand.
Okay. So it starts with getting our glass manufactured by O-I in Kalama, WA, or Tracy, CA.
Wait—what? Why? Why are you making glass? I thought you were just collecting and washing bottles for redistribution?
Well, no. There are over 500 glass bottle molds available in the U.S. marketplace today. The costs and labor involved with collecting, then sorting 500 different molds of bottles is outrageous; doing so wouldn’t be cheaper than what we face simply recycling single-use glass. Plus, if you’re taking back any type of bottle, you’ll spend years accumulating enough of one type to run a wash cycle.
But… so what? Can’t you just sell mixed batches? Like, market the “coolness” or “artisan-nature” of a mixed batch of glass—especially with certain smaller, scrappier, more new-school wineries? I feel like that could be part of a brand’s allure in marketing to a younger, more eco-conscious audience?
Maybe, but most of the wineries we talked to (especially in Napa!) were very particular about the look of their glass. Plus, it doesn’t matter; you have to sort the bottles, because you can’t wash a mixed batch!!!
What??
You can’t wash a mixed batch of bottles. You can have very slight variability in the wash batch, but every bottle needs to be properly centered within the rows of the commercial washer, so the bottle width has to be the same at the very least. And then there’s the inspection post-wash to ensure the bottles are perfectly intact—no tiny chips or cracks, so they’re safe to re-fill and ship. Even if you decided to inspect the bottles with your eyes, humans can’t reliably find every little chip or crack, which could be dangerous (not to mention costly) to fill and ship. So you need an automated empty bottle inspector (EBI) to check, and the EBI can only check the same types of bottles… the technology is not developed enough to be able to inspect mixed batches. Besides, if you’re going to sell these bottles back to producers (especially bigger ones), you need the bottles to be certified inspected.
Then there’s the boxing component: If you’re stacking pallets on pallets of glass, you need everything to be identical, or the whole stack can be compromised. And finally, a lot of single-use glass isn’t built for or isn’t strong enough to be washed and re-used time and time again. So… we start with manufacturing our own glass, which can be reused realistically 7-10 times before noticing visual wear, and in theory even up to 50 times.
Ugh! This IS more complicated than I thought.
Yeah. And then we had to figure out a standardized packaging, or a set bottle style, which was… not easy. Like I said, most producers were really particular about the look of their glass. If the glass doesn’t fit their aesthetic, they won’t join the initiative.
This drives me bonkers. I feel like there could be a tremendously powerful marketing initiative around binding together on this… like the Special Club! You know about the Special Club, right?
No…
Dear Audience: YOU know about the Special Club, right? The Club Trèsors de Champagne? Also known as the most brilliant wine marketing campaign I’ve ever seen?
The Special Club is a club of… well… special grower Champagnes. The members of the club all grow their own grapes and make their own wines, and they all agree to uphold the same very high production and quality standards. Finally, the members submit their best vintage wines for a blind tasting by the group; those Champagnes which pass muster are allowed to then be bottled under the prestigious label of—you guessed it—the Special Club. But that’s not the brilliant part yet.
As the members of the original Special Club, formed in 1971, were contemplating their challenges in the market, they noticed that big-name Champagne houses were able to sell their têtes de cuvées, or highest end bottlings, for a top-dollar premium. Small grower producers like those in the Special Club, however, were challenged in their super-premium sales due to their lack of name-brand recognition in the market at large. “Who is Pertois-Moriset?” a shopper might ask, “And why should I pay $120 for their wine?”
And this is where we discover the brilliance of the Special Club. Special Club Champagnes are always distinguished by their unique and uniform signature, squatty, crest-embossed bottle. The idea is that no matter which member of the Club made the wine, and no matter which vintage or tête de cuvée they released, consumers can easily recognize this iconic bottle on shelves and purchase with full confidence that this is a stand-out Champagne made with the highest standards and which showcases greatness for the vintage. Besides that, it’s literally called SPECIAL CLUB. Who doesn’t want to get involved with a club… that’s SPECIAL? That is why, to me, this is the most brilliant wine marketing campaign I’ve ever seen. Honestly, as a consumer, I’ve made it a habit to “collect” as many Special Club Champagnes as I could over the years. If I’m at a shop or a restaurant and I come across a Special Club from a producer I haven’t heard of, I buy it! I want to try ALL the Special Clubs I can get my paws on, because the values of the Club—the quality, intention and integrity that back the wines—matter to me. Because I want to support small, thoughtful growers. And because I trust the palates of its members, who have vetted each Special Club-bottled wine for me.
BRILLIANT, right?!?! So, like, can’t we just rally the troops behind your glass and this whole circular economy solution and make our own “special club”?
Mmmhmm… You’d like to think they’d get behind the project regardless of the look of the glass, because of the overarching initiative, but… the more established the brand, we found, the less likely they were to be leaders or change-makers in this area. That said, yes, this is a goal. Coming out of last year’s Napa Green event, we’ve been really focused on standardized packaging because we knew this was essential. Ultimately, it’s “managed pools,” or pool-packaging models: Some overarching entity (like Revino or ReUse California) decides “This is the bottle and the type of label you can use if you work with us,” and then can make sure everyone has equal access to buying the bottles. At the same time, recognition is developed for the consumer; we as the collectors know what this bottle looks like—we can readily identify it on the shelf—and we know that we can take it back.
Right now we offer the Burgundy-shape bottle in “antique green” or “flint” (clear) glass with cork- or screwcap-finish options, and we’re working on a Bordeaux bottle as well.
Okay. So say the winery has gotten their glass, and they bottle the wine.
Yep. In Oregon, around 50 of our producers have already bottled, and more are getting ready to bottle this spring.
And then… they send it out into the world!
They bottle their wine in it, and when they release those to market we ask for a big marketing push. The wineries that see the biggest benefits or get the greatest response are those with a strong local presence and a strong communication effort. We send a little package of materials to them, a QR code we ask them to print on the labels if possible or include, and general marketing info for the winery to use to promote.
The messaging to guests is, “If you’re at all local, come visit us instead of getting your wine shipped if possible. The next time you come back to see us at the winery, here’s an incentive to bring the bottle back.” Or, “Bring it back to this, or this, or this other friend’s place,” referring them to other participating wineries and shops. And, “If you get your wine shipped, here’s where you can return these special bottles. If you’re completely outside of this market—like in another state—here’s a resource to figure out where you can properly recycle this for best benefit, since only around 31% of all food and beverage glass in the United States actually gets recycled. Here’s how you can get involved in reuse in a different way.”
Tasting rooms could even run a separate bottling of wines just for their tasting room and not even have to re-collect these reusable bottles; they’d keep them on-site.
The winery collects the bottles, and then they either work with a collection partner and facility, for example Wine Service Co-op in Napa or UCPNB, or Revino ourselves, and schedule a pick-up. In Oregon, we have a few distributors on board who are collecting, also! Currently the pick-up minimum is 10 cases, and wineries just send a message to us, and we come collect. The bottles then go to our centralized washing location, and they get washed and ready for resale.
Really, we’re trying to push a broader narrative and to re-normalize bottle reuse. Remember the milkman? This concept wasn’t odd or out of the ordinary until fairly recently, and in other countries bottle return is still much more prevalent. Educating and incentivizing guests is the name of the game right now.
On which note, can we go back to your statistic about only 31% of glass actually getting recycled? How is this possible? Do consumers know this?
Right. Of food and beverage glass bottles in the U.S., on average across the country only 31% is successfully recycled. In major cities in Oregon or California this figure might seem crazy, but if you go to Kansas City, for example, there is a company that collects and recycles glass, but you the consumer cannot put it in your curbside bin; you have to bring it to the drop-site. Curbside glass recycling is unavailable in many markets. Here in Oregon, at least as of last year in Medford, it’s too far to Portland where the processing facility is, so they just crush and dump their glass over landfill there in Medford. Furthermore, if you are using single-stream recycling (everything can go into the same bin and get sorted at the facility), glass very often breaks and the pieces get mixed up with everything else; sorting out broken shards is almost impossible, so this glass is low-value and gets recycled into aggregate for roads or less clean streams than another pure glass bottle.
Don’t forget that the glass recycling process itself—breaking glass down into cullet, then heating it and re-shaping—emits toxic pollution and expends tons of energy. Versus just washing.
So, given all of that, what are the hang-ups? What’s holding us up? Again: WHY IS THIS NOT YET A THING?
It’s a thing! It’s happening in Oregon! And you can work with us at Revino right now in California (or anywhere) if you’re willing to start and can meet certain volumes. If you’re willing to get the glass from O-I in Washington or California, use proper wash-off labels, if you’re willing to do the collecting, and if you’re willing to pay to ship the glass back to our facilities in Oregon for washing. Even with interstate transport, this significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and waste while conserving resources compared to single-use or recycled bottles. But soon, hopefully, you won’t have to pay to ship, because we’ll have facilities in California… and eventually beyond. We have detailed equipment proposals and facility options lined up, ready for swift action if we get this grant from CalRecycle. Whoever gets it, even if it’s not us, we’re going to be asking them to collaborate, to use their bottle-washing facilities to make this happen. This is an all-in and all-out collaborative effort.
A huge thing I want wineries to be aware of is learning about the legislature and policies for bottle reuse coming down the pipeline. They are coming. And they will cost the wine industry or their importer partners, and these costs are inevitably going to incentivize them to shift toward reuse. Knowing that these policies are coming and that it’s going to cost us if we’re not prepared, we need to start the conversation and make the plans NOW. Start learning, start talking with your peers and other producers, so you can realize there’s a group of people like you who are interested. Together, map out how it would work; start figuring out what the process is going to look like, start thinking about what’s going to challenge you, and start determining what you’ll need to make it happen. Start now.
RESOURCES TO GET STARTED—NOW:
Learn more…
Follow Napa Green and attend the Napa RISE climate and wine symposium (the next one is April-May 2025, and Revino will be there!)
For producers - Review the bottle supply agreement and express your interest. In Napa/Sonoma, email nvzerowaste@gmail.com to join the Napa Zero Waste Collective and start chatting with like-minded producers.
For consumers - Check out the list of participating wineries you can support. Research your local recycling parameters. Buy and return refillable containers wherever you can.