A new startup in Oregon (of course : ), Revino, is launching a refillable wine bottle company in partnership with the State’s bottle collection program. The wine bottles would be collected and sent to the Revino facility for the labels to be removed, the bottles washed and made available to wineries for reuse. The cost appears to be similar to the single-use options. In addition the bottles are made in the U.S. (CA & WA). The benefit to the environment is significant — many studies have shown that bottles and transportation of wine are the two main drivers of the industry’s environmental impact.
The big questions I have: how to you all as buyers, feel about the bottle’s design? And more generally, how do you feel about buying premium wine in a refillable bottle format?
More details: The company is telling us that they have sophisticated scanning technology to detect cleanliness at the microbiological scale, bottle chips, cracks or other flaws and these bottles will be removed from the program and recycled. Also they will remove bottles with obvious signs of overuse (scratches, etc). There are lots of other details as to how the program will work in Oregon. But glad to see that the company is also in the initial stages of discussion for returns with other States (initially, CA, NY and WA).
Picture below: Screw cap or cork closure, Burgundy, Antique Green, 495 grams. Flint color, and Bordeaux, Sparkling and Hock shapes will be introduced in the future.
Reusing bottles is old news in brewing. The Germans have done it for years. The Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative bought all the equipment to do this for beer (including designing a proprietary bottle) at about the time that almost everyone switched to cans. If we were still using bottles, we would be using this system. I wouldn’t be at all worried about using the bottles.
Disclosure: We are a shareholder/member of the Coop - it’s almost required of breweries.
I like the concept. I currently donate all of my empties to a friend who is a home winemaker, so some of them come back to me, and may get recycled a few times.
My main question would be WHO the producers are in the program, as the wine inside is what matters. If you can get Eyrie, Argyle, Willamette Valley, some other larger volume producers on board, I can certainly see this flying. Wine growlers are already a thing I think in OR supermarkets, but this could capture more higher end stuff that benefits from cellar aging.
Also is this program support by OR DEQ? I have contacts there, particularly in their solid waste program that is developing their new EPR regulation. If you want to chat more about that, send me a private message and we can connect. (I can even count it as day job time. )
Yes, I remember seeing the beer bottles— but yes, Revino is working in partnership with OBRC and they’re lit. suggests the desire to expand into beer, kombucha and other formats after the wine launch in 2024
Wouldn’t you have to get everyone on board? If I buy A case from you with these empty bottles and don’t drink all of that case for 3 years, I’m going to have to store a few empty bottles somewhere myself for 3 years. What about 10 year wines? I’m supposed to return two at a time? That doesnt make efficient sense.
It makes much more sense with Pilsner because you might drink the 6 pack tonight and return it tomorrow.
Big fan of the concept and would love to see it widely adopted. Would it make me choose a producer I’m not familiar with or otherwise not a fan of that uses the reusable bottle over a beloved producer that doesn’t use them? In most cases, likely not. But I’d lobby those I buy from to switch.
In Oregon (and hopefully CA, NY and WA soon, and more States later) the idea is you put any bottles you have in your bin along with your other 10cent return bottles for example, and drop them off at your local bottle drop site* (in Oregon, wineries will also take the refillable wine bottles when you visit a tasting room). In other words you don’t need to return the whole case at one time. (*not your household recycling bin, but the actual bottle return facilities.)
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My main question would be WHO the producers are in the program, as the wine inside is what matters. If you can get Eyrie, Argyle, Willamette Valley, some other larger volume producers on board, I can certainly see this flying.[/quote].
Right— they have early commitments from about twenty wineries including a couple of well-loved on this Board : ) What I don’t know is if this includes premium wines, or just the wineries’ lower-tiered bottles?
How does the cost of these reusable bottles compare to the standard bottles you use now? Assuming reusable bottles are more expensive, would you bottle wine that you expect to stay in Oregon (like to Oregon restaurants and distributors) in reusable bottles, and bottle wine that will be exported in standard (less expensive) bottles? Or is that more trouble that the cost difference would justify?
About the same— it’s not quite final but they are aiming for $12/case which is on par. Bottling lines/companies don’t like to switch mid-stream (requires stopping for recalibration) so we would need to commit per brand/SKU. I could see wineries choosing the reusables for their Willamette Valley bottlings only(?) or go for the whole lineup. We were shown a plastic model rendering and will have the actual glass sample later this month. I’m a little concerned about the look of the “swoosh” like design feature… but trying to keep an open mind!
Would be better if they could just take an average batch of recycled bottles, weed out the oddballs, and just sort, clean, and sell ones that are within a standard range. I wouldn’t care if bottes of the same wine from a producer were slightly different.
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