French wine lovers have long balked at screw tops — now they are being asked to swallow another innovation likely to bring an apoplectic flush to their faces: paper bottles.
An increasing number of winemakers in France are discarding glass bottles in favour of more environmentally friendly paper, with a plastic inner liner to hold the wine.
About 10,000 paper wine bottles made by Frugalpac, an Ipswich company, were sold in France last year. “We expect to sell 100,000 this year,” said Thomas de Lagarde, the French distributor.
He acknowledged, however, that traditionalists would see red over what they regard as sacrilege.
“Worldwide, three million paper bottles have been sold so far this year,” de Lagarde said. “But the French are more conservative in their attitudes to wine than consumers in the UK or Scandinavia, where there is greater sensitivity to environmental issues and the bulk of the sales were made.”
• Bordeaux embraces taste for wine by glass to boost sales
The first French wine to be sold in a paper Frugal bottle was Mistral Gourmand, a Côtes du Rhône with AOP, or appellation d’origine protégée status.
“After the Ukraine war broke out we had trouble sourcing glass bottles,” said Alexandra Bourgoin of Château Malijay, which produces the wine, and has sold more than 4,500 paper bottles. “We also wanted to try paper because glass production uses a lot of energy and the carbon footprint with paper is much smaller, so we started introducing paper in 2023. ”
A Sauvignon Blanc in a paper bottle
A selection of the environmentally friendly Château La France wines
Winemakers and the paper bottle manufacturers say there is no change in taste. Malcolm Waugh, the CEO of Frugalpac, said: “Nobody has been able to tell the difference in a blind tasting.”
Victoria Riboud, a French sommelière who sampled the same rosé from a glass and a paper bottle, expressed some reservations, however. She said: “You get a nice nose of red berries with both. It’s not quite as fresh from the paper bottle as it is from the glass bottle, but in terms of flavour, you’re in the same aromatic range.”
• Move over Paris, London is now the wine capital of the world
Château La France, one of Bordeaux’s largest estates, is keen to sell some of its wines in paper bottles, but has had trouble finding retailers. Stéphane Mottet, the owner, said: “Buyers are reluctant because the price is 20 to 30 per cent higher than for a glass bottle.
“You really need a distributor or a supermarket that is concerned about the environment, but in the current market, price is everything. That isn’t likely to change now that we’ve been hit with 10 per cent tariffs by President Trump … The US represents 30 per cent of our sales.”
Frugal bottles are made of 85 per cent recycled paperboard and have a carbon footprint that is six times smaller than for a glass bottle and a third less than a plastic bottle.
Waugh added: “Glass can also be recycled but when you recycle a glass bottle you use almost as much energy as if you make a new bottle.”
• 15 best wines for Easter bank holiday weekend
A paper bottle weighs less than three ounces, almost five times lighter than a conventional glass bottle, saving on fuel and emissions in transport. However, wine in paper bottles has a much shorter shelf life than wine in glass bottles.
“You have to drink it within about a year for white or 18 months for red, so that limits the use of paper bottles to mid-range wines, not wines that you are going to lay down for several years so they can age,” Bourgoin said.
Château La France, one of Bordeaux’s largest estates, has struggled to find retailers to stock the paper wines
De Lagarde said: “Paper is good for wines priced from €7 to €15, so consumers aren’t afraid to try. They expect a glass bottle for more expensive wines, and the additional production cost of paper is too high for wines that are any cheaper.”
In the UK, paper bottles are used by the English Vine for its Bacchus wines, Waugh said. “Our biggest UK customer is When in Rome, which imports Italian wine in boxes, and they decided to complement that with our Frugal bottles.”
The technology of a plastic bag in a box is the same as for paper bottles, except that the outer packaging is bottle-shaped.
Frugal bottles are also used for vodka and other spirits including armagnac.
French environmentalists will toast the growing popularity of paper bottles but purists will be still more dismayed to discover that they come with screw tops instead of corks.
Frugal bottles are used for vodka and other spirits as well as wine
Jane McQuitty: does paper packaged plonk taste worse?
Hailed as the sustainable saviour to heavy, planet-destroying glass, alas; wine packaged in paper bottles is not all it’s cracked up to be.
It’s been over a decade since the first paper wine bottle, produced by the Suffolk firm, GreenBottle, landed on UK shop shelves. The jaw breakingly-dull GreenBottle wines from Italy did not thrill discerning drinkers then and nor did the Cantina Goccia Italians that followed in 2020.
Since then Aldi launched a miserable 2023 Cambalala South African Sauvignon Blanc and 2023 Cambalala Shiraz for £7.99 last year and, very sensibly, delisted the pair not long after.
No one is denying the green credentials of this alternative wine format that uses six times less Co₂ than a glass bottle, with a thick paper outer and a plastic pouch interior. Yet, judging from the duo below, Frugalpac and other producers, unlike the wine boxes and wine cans on sale currently, have a long way to go before creating an acceptable wine format.
It’s also worth noting that none of the lightweight, recyclable aluminium wine bottle trio launched this spring hit the spot either; avoid Aldi’s sweaty 2024 Costellore Italian Pinot Grigio, £5.99, the dreary Vinca Organic Sicilian Catarratto White and dire, raspberry jam-sticky Vinca Organic Sicilian Syrah and Nero d’avila Red, both £9 Tesco.
The green wine party must try harder.
Whites
When in Rome Pinot Grigio, Puglia, Italy, 13 per cent, Sainsbury’s £10.75
Water-white pale, with bland, very faintly floral, grapey fruit.
Reds
2023 Twelve Giants Merlot, Vino de la Tierra, Spain, 13.5 per cent, laithwaites.co.uk £12.99
Dark browny-red, burnt, jammy, oxidised, a shocker.