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The Pour
酒瓶的问题
They may be a perfect container for aging wine, but glass bottles contribute enormously to climate change.
从历史上看，玻璃瓶一直是葡萄酒的理想容器。它们是惰性的，可以轻松密封，因此葡萄酒可以年龄和发展多年，没有影响力。它们易于运输和存储。一个750毫升瓶是两个人的理想尺寸。
然而，在全球贸易中断和气候危机时期，玻璃瓶从来没有比今天更多的问题。
在过去几年中，许多生产商都报告了难以获得瓶子和抱怨成本更高。除了通常的大流行供应链问题外，来自美国的主要来源的中国瓶子自2018年以来一直受到25％的关税。乌克兰的生产主要是为欧洲制造的瓶子，由于有效而停止了与俄罗斯的战争减少了供应。
这些是周期性问题。葡萄酒生产商可以广告apt in the short term, no matter how painful. The far more urgent long-term concern is the climate crisis and related environmental challenges. Numerous audits of thecarbon footprint of wine production从生产到交付的玻璃瓶却归咎于该行业的温室气体排放量最大。
This perfect container, it turns out, is a huge problem for the planet.
制作玻璃瓶需要大量的热量和能量，瓶装葡萄酒以及所有必要的包装材料来保护脆弱的容器，是需要大量燃料发货的重载。瓶子越重，燃料越多，产生的温室气体就越多。
除了还有一个主要的其他问题外，世界也许可以接受这一点：一旦这些瓶子被葡萄酒排出，它们通常就会被扔掉。必须一次又一次地重复整个能源的温室发射过程。
Theoretically, recycling glass bottles should help mitigate the problem. But, as Jason Haas, the general manager ofTablas Creek Vineyardin Paso Robles, Calif., explained在最近的博客文章中，美国玻璃回收状态令人沮丧。
The Environmental Protection Agency estimatesonly 31 percent of glassin the United States is recycled, compared with 74 percent in Europe and more than 95 percent in Sweden, Belgium and Slovenia. It’s actually worse than 31 percent, Mr. Haas said, as much of that glass is crushed and used to build roads rather than to melt down for new glass.
Unlike many smaller nations, which can impose a unified set of rules nationally, Mr. Haas wrote, the United States is a large and complicated country with many different jurisdictions, each with different rules and requirements for recycling. Few enforce even these.
In America, recycling has largely been left to government and consumers. Perhaps the system would work better,正如某些人所说的，，，，if glass manufacturers were responsible for recycling. Mr. Haas suggests that the wine industry must try to increase its use of recycled glass.
A better and more wide-reaching solution than recycling would be to return and reuse bottles, as people did for decades until the post-World War II era of convenience ushered in the disposable bottle. Sadly, people seem so wed to the convenience of tossing things out thatseveral promising recent trials可重复使用的酒瓶失败了。
In one,哥谭项目，，，，a company that specializes in selling keg wine to bars and restaurants, began a pilot program in early 2021 with a small group of retailers and restaurants in New York, Massachusetts and Colorado, selling wine in bottles that were intended to be returned and reused multiple times.
为此,哥谭镇不得不应对众多罗技stical difficulties. Where would retailers store empty bottles? Would consumers need to wash them before returning? And what about labels? They had to be affixed with older forms of water-soluble glue that would dissolve in washing rather than with the seemingly eternal bond of modern adhesives. These challenges were dwarfed by a much bigger problem.
布鲁斯·施耐德（Bruce Schneider）说：“我们看不到瓶子回来了，”他与合伙人查尔斯·比勒（Charles Bieler）在2010年创立了哥谭。人们对可持续性和碳足迹的认识提高了，消费者说他们想享受分享，我们认为这是自然的。我们一直保持一年，但几乎没有回报。”
Another company, Good Goods, likewise abandoned a test program of returnable wine bottles after finding consumers were simply not bringing them back. Both Good Goods and Gotham tried various incentives for consumers returning bottles, like small deposits, store credit, even donations to charity,但是从长远来看，什么都没有。
“It’s a massive consumer behavioral shift that needs to take place, and we’re not there yet,” said Melissa Monti Saunders, chief executive ofCommunal Brands，纽约的进口商和分销商，与好商品合作。
Ms. Saunders, who has also passed rigorous tests to earn a葡萄酒大师credential, believes the biggest problem is logistics. If systems for returning and storing bottles can be made easier for consumers and businesses, participation will grow, she said.
她说，为此，好商品正在重组自己，作为一家物流公司，专注于促进circular economyin which materials like bottles are reused or repurposed rather than disposed of or eliminated, reducing waste and saving energy.
“The logistics piece of the circular economy game is at the heart of the matter,” she said. “It’s a huge obstacle.”
On a recent episode of四个顶部，桑德斯女士是一个葡萄酒播客，与戴安娜·斯诺登·塞斯西斯（Diana Snowden Seysses）讨论了回收利用，后者在她的家庭庄园酿造葡萄酒，Snowden Vineyardsin Napa Valley andDomaine Dujac在勃艮第。
Ms. Snowden Seysses, too, is an ardent proponent of reusable bottles. She said the infrastructure for reusing bottles still existed in Europe, pointing out that塞尔格·雪沃（Serge Cheveau）一家专门从事重新使用瓶的公司，距离杜哈克（Dujac）不远，尤其是从比利时的瓶子开展了大企业，政府提供了重新使用瓶子的激励措施。
Both Dujac and Snowden make wines intended for aging and require glass containers, Ms. Snowden Seysses said, which will not affect the flavor or composition of the wine.
But most wines of the world are consumed within a year of purchase and have no need of glass. Still, producers unnecessarily put modest wines in bottles because consumers perceive glass as emblematic of higher quality and associate other sorts of containers, likebag-in-box，，，，with poor wine.
桑德斯女士说，罐子并不比瓶子好得多。它们更容易回收，但仍然需要大量的能量才能创造。
“They’re a lot of packaging for a little bit of wine,” she said.
尽管两位妇女都说可重复使用的瓶子最终将是必不可少的一步，但他们认为，尽管部分用可支配塑料制成的替代容器，但在环境上会更好，因为它们消耗的生产和运输能量要少得多。
In addition, the standard three-liter bag-in-box, once opened, can keep wines fresh for four to six weeks, much longer than opened bottles.
桑德斯女士在播客中说：“这是一个神话，即箱式袋子必须便宜。
In other words, the better the wine sold in the bag-in-box format, the more willing consumers will be to embrace it. Ms. Saunders, through Communal Brands, is selling good, unpretentious wines likeHérisson，，，，a Bourgogne Passetoutgrain, andSchplïnk，，，，an Austrian grüner veltliner, in bag-in-box.Domaine de Triennes，这使得法国南部的价格适中的葡萄酒以及Seysses女士是顾问，现在在三升袋装容器中出售葡萄酒。
Other good wines are available in this format. Mr. Haas of Tablas Creek experimented with bag-in-box, packaging the equivalent of 112 cases of 2021Patelin deTablasRosé，，，，a modest wine that would typically be served by the glass in restaurants. It sold out almost immediately, Mr. Haas said. The response was so enthusiastic that he repeated the experiment with Patelin de Tablas white and will do it again soon with the red.
“I was so happy to see that,” Ms. Saunders said of the Tablas Creek box. “Pedigreed, respectable producers are a really big thing, it legitimizes it.”
我强烈推荐的其他盒装葡萄酒是从坦克，，，，from Jenny & François Selections, a natural wine importer, and酒莓盒，，，，from Wineberry U.S.A., another importer.
For her part, Ms. Snowden Seysses is trying another pilot program in reusable bottles, with a Santa Cruz Mountains merlot made from purchased fruit and sold under a second label,Snowden Cousins。It will be distributed by Communal Brands to restaurants rather than to consumers through retail.
她说：“这是一个合理的下一步。”“我要参加的餐馆参加，激励消费者参加。
“We’ll see how it goes in California first,” she continued. “I’m still working on Burgundy, but in Burgundy the problem is counterfeits,” she said, alluding to fraudulent bottles with labels from prestigious producers like Dujac that are filled with inferior wine and sold at a premium. Labeled, reusable bottles might make counterfeiting easier.
查看气候危机的规模以及现在似乎很难采取的小步骤，很容易感到灰心。有时很难记住，每一项小努力都会有所帮助。可重复使用的瓶子有一天将成为切割碳足迹的重要工具。
“It’s the perfect container,” Mr. Haas said. “If only we could figure out a way to reuse them.”
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