Cambridge Wine Merchants is the first company in the UK to import the wine and so what better way to market the wine than on a punt on the River Cam on a beautiful Saturday in July! The Green Bottle Punt was decorated as a beautiful garden, with shrubs and flowers, picnic baskets and ice buckets filled with the new wine. Hal Wilson, Cambridge Wine Merchants' MD was joined by his wife Seana, his son Jack who did the punting and Andrew Bayley and Rupert Hosking from Joseph Mellot's UK agents Mistral Wines. The team spent the day passing samples and money off vouchers of Green Bottle Sauvignon to adults passing by in punts - not as easy as it sounds!

Hal said "We are really thrilled to be at the forefront of environmental intiatives in the wine industry - and the customer reaction to both the quality and benefits of the packaging was tremendous. By the end of the day picnickers were sitting on the river bank sipping Green Bottle Sauvignon and telling everyone around them how cool it is. I really wanted to create a buzz about the bottle's features - it is so light and easy to carry, it doesn't smash if you drop it and is much better environmentally than glass to produce, transport and recycle. People absolutely loved the concept so I really expect to see more wines available in this type of bottle in the future."

The new bottle is the result of a process of an environmental audit by Sancerre producer Joseph Mellot. We know that glass is heavy, fragile and uses a lot of energy to produce and recycle. But it has always been the best material to protect wine from oxidation over a period of time. PET bottles, that we all happily use to buy water and soft drinks in, has not preserved wine very well over extended periods of 6 months or more. Now the Green Bottle has been produced with extra UV blockers, a double layer of PET and a nylon membrane. The result is that the wine stays in perfect condition for 18 months, which is more than enough for a fresh crisp dry white wine which is ready for immediate consumption. The bottle uses a third of the energy to produce that goes into glass bottle production and is a tenth of the weight of glass, meaning it is much cheaper to transport. It is also 100% recyclable.

 So, to lighten your load, avoid the risk of broken glass, to reduce your carbon footprint and still have a quality wine at an affordable price - choose Green Bottle Sauvignon Blanc 2009 (£7.99 from Cambridge Wine Merchants. www.cambridgewine.com Tel 01223 568993).

Interested in the Green Bottle and its benefits for the environment?
Here's another very interesting article on the "10:10" homepage: http://www.1010global.org/uk/2010/07/raise-glass-lower-carbon-wine