Packaging & Closures
Sustainable Packaging
d'Arenberg is a proud signatory to the National Packaging Covenant, a model for the management of used packaging. It is a national initiative between the packaging supply chain and governments to reduce the amount of used packaging going to landfill.
The Covenant has a target to achieve a national recycling rate of of 65% by 2010. To find out more about the covenant download the brochure below:
Environmental Packaging Brochure.pdfClosure Positioning Statement
Rationale:
d’Arenberg uses old world, labour intensive winemaking methods such as gentle crushing, open fermentation, foot treading and basket pressing to preserve primary fruit characters and create a structured wine that will age well. It is our belief that the screwcap closure provides the best environment to preserve and enhance these characters during the aging process.
History:
A selection of red wines from the 2002, 2003 and 2004 vintages were sealed with screw cap to assess its performance against cork on d’Arenberg wines.
Blind tastings were conducted over a number of years to review the results from each closure. It was unanimously decided that all wines were fresher in style and retained more fruit characters when sealed with screwcap at all stages of maturity.
Chief Winemaker and Viticulturist, Chester Osborn notes the results are conclusive.
“Each wine showed more fruit on the nose and had a sweeter mid-palate. At no stage did they look hard or raw. The tannins still softened as normal aging took place and we did not find any sign of oxidisation or woody cork like aromas or flavours as were evident on some of the cork sealed bottles.
“We are confident to progressively move our reds to screwcap as it is clear that the wines are better for it, and it complements the d’Arenberg style.”
On the back of these results d’Arenberg looked to move the whole range of wines to screwcap globally, but identified that it would need to be a gradual progression. Since the 2005 vintage all d’Arenberg made for sale in Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand have been sealed with screwcap.
Whilst there remains some resistance to screwcap in high end wines in certain markets, d’Arenberg aims to supply all of the 2010 vintage with screwcap globally.
“The pop of the cork is widely accepted as symbolic of the romance of wine. But the cork brings with it the very real risk that the wine will be tainted, oxidised, dull or flat – and there is nothing romantic about that.
“The romance of wine is all about what lies in the bottle and the company in which it is shared, not about how the bottle is opened. Perhaps the true romantic seal is the one which maintains the romance of the wine and the moment?”
– Tyson Stelzer, Taming the Screw, Wine Press, 2005