New fizz gives greens reason to celebrate

The French luxury drink has re-designed its traditional glass bottle to cut the amount of carbon that is used to transport millions of bottle all around the world.

It is estimated the new bottle will be the equivalent of taking 4,000 small cars off the road every year. But in a bid to maintain the brand's traditions the image-conscious producers have kept noticeable changes to a minumum.

Thierry Gasco, the master vintner for Pommery said: "This is how we're remaking the future of Champagne,"

"We're slimming the shoulders to make the bottle lighter, so our carbon footprint will be reduced to help keep Champagne here for future generations."

The Champagne industry wants to to cut the 200,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide it emits every year transporting billions of tiny bubbles around the world. Producing and shipping accounts for nearly a third of Champagne's carbon emissions, and the hefty bottle is the biggest reason.

Yet while many other industries might plaster their marketing with eco-friendly claims, changes to Champagne, as with so much else in France, are being made discreetly. Producers in this secretive business are tight-lipped about the costs and enigmatic about how much their carbon emissions will really be cut.

"Champagne is sometimes more humble than it should be," said Philippe Wibrotte of the Comit Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), the region's trade organisation. "Much is done for the promotion of the environment, but it's kept quiet because we want to make sure each step is perfect."

The industry speaks in hushed tones, too, in deference to the luxurious image and ritualistic traditions of Champagne, as symbolised for centuries by the bottle. It was Dom Prignon, a Benedictine monk, who first thickened the glass in the mid-1600s to contain what was often referred to as "the devil's wine" because its vessels exploded so often. Over time, the bottle was gradually recalibrated until 900 grams became the standard weight in the early 1970s.

The retooling, which uses 65 fewer grams of glass, is in response to a 2003 study of Champagne's carbon footprint, which the industry wants to cut 25 per cent by 2020, and 75 per cent by 2050.

Champagne accounts for only 10 per cent of the three billion bottles of sparkling wine produced globally each year. But the bottle stands out for its heft. Italian prosecco, for instance, uses a 750-gram bottle. But it has only about half the pressure of Champagne, which generates three times the air pressure of a typical car tyre.Although some of Pommery's restyled bottles are already on the market, the CIVC expects all Champagne houses to start using the new 835-gram vessel next April for bottling this month's grape harvest; the new bottles will hit shops after three years of fermentation, cutting carbon emissions by 8,000 metric tons annually, the equivalent of taking 4,000 small cars off the road.

"For Champagne producers to reduce the weight of their packaging is definitely a step in the right direction," said Tyler Colman, an author of environmental studies on the wine industry, "because there's less mass to transport around the world."

Designing a new bottle was no small feat. The container still had to withstand Champagne's extreme pressure. It would also need to survive the four-year journey from the factory to cellars to dining tables, and fit in existing machinery at all Champagne houses. And it had to be moulded so consumers would barely detect the difference in the bottle's classic shape. The bottle is part of Champagne's image, and we don't want to affect it," said Daniel Lorson, a spokesman for the trade group.

Most of the new Champagne bottles are made at the St Gobain plant, where molten red glass is dropped from a 20-foot-high chute into moulds at a rate of 160 a minute.

A worker on Pommery's assembly line said he noticed that a few more of the new bottles were exploding, and that they made a higher-pitched sound when they clinked together. Gasco denied there were more explosions, and said any damage more likely came from using heat to inject the cork.

Bruno Delhorbe, the director at the St Gobain factory, said that using less glass lowered the carbon emissions necessary to make each bottle by 7 per cent, and allowed about 2,400 more to be placed inside delivery trucks, reducing the number of trucks on the road.

Of course, there are even lighter alternatives: many of the world's producers of still wines use plastic bottles and box containers to reduce their carbon footprint.

But it may be a long time before Champagne goes that route. Most houses cultivate an image of luxury through packaging and pricing - and intimations that other sparkling wines are inferior because they are not Champagne.

Still, many producers insist that while tradition has its place, the environmentally motivated changes are about ensuring the brand has a long-term future.