Carbon footprint diminishes with each re-use, and Willamette goes all in with more than 1,400 cases
SALEM HILLS, Ore., August 14, 2024 — In May of this year, Willamette Valley Vineyards did what many thought impossible: By partnering with Revino, the winery helped bring a new reusable glass bottle concept to life. They didn’t just float the idea out there with a few cases — Willamette went all in by filling 1,452 cases of their 2023 Whole Cluster Pinot Noir wine in Revino packaging, totaling 17,424 bottles.
Today, wine enthusiasts will be among the first to purchase and taste Willamette’s 2023 vintage Pinot Noir in Revino bottles at Willamette’s tasting rooms in Oregon and Southwest Washington, including the Willamette Valley Vineyards Estate tasting room in the Salem Hills, recently hailed as the Best Tasting Room in the country.
“It’s of a scale that it can make a sizeable impact and have a fair chance at succeeding and changing the way we, and other Oregon producers, do business,” Willamette’s Founder and CEO Jim Bernau said of the bottling. “This ambitious undertaking with Revino allows us to lead and fits with our commitment to steward the land since we began in 1983.”
“Wine enthusiasts want to know that the wine they’re drinking is made with respect to the earth and is socially responsible, too,” he added. “And they want to join us in this effort. If we can help educate our customers what to do with the bottles, they’ll tell their friends about it. It will act as a siphon where more will join.”
Willamette was among the first nine Oregon wineries to bottle in Revino’s packaging, with other winemakers including Cameron Winery, Guerrilla Wine Co., and Quady North also jumping aboard. By harvest time, this number will climb to 34 Oregon wineries that have bottled or will bottle in Revino, just under 3% of the wineries in Oregon.
In the spirit of collaboration, Willamette will accept used Revino bottles, including from the three wineries named above, at its tasting rooms in Oregon and Southwest Washington. Revino will pick up the bottles and prepare them for reuse. Other return locations are noted on Revino’s website.
“As soon as we announced our partnership with Revino, our customers, club members and shareholders started asking when they can get their hands on this wine, so we know our leap of faith will have an impact,” said Willamette COO Libby Spencer. “Not only will the bottling help the winery lower its carbon footprint as we continue sustainable farming and winemaking practices, but this partnership also helps those who want to be more conscious of the products they consume.”
“We want to take care of the earth,” Spencer said. “The vines will be here for years to come. The only way for them to be healthy and thrive is by caring for our land.”
“The Oregon wine industry goes to great lengths to be kind to the earth, and this new packaging truly pushes winemakers, especially ones like Willamette on a bigger scale, past the mark into making a real difference almost instantly,” noted Adam Rack, COO and co-founder of Revino. “With Americans consuming more wine than any other country, it only seems right that we should also lead the way in ditching the single-use bottle and choosing reuse before recycling, amortizing the life of the bottle many times over.”
Revino bottles enable 25 to 50 uses per bottle and reduce emissions by up to 85% compared to single-use bottles. By having bottles made in the Pacific Northwest, the industry sidesteps its reliance on imported bottles, primarily from China. Having an Oregon package with a Pacific Northwest product inside helps complete the closed loop of true sustainability.
Willamette’s nationally distributed 2023 Whole Cluster Pinot Noir (sold online or distributed to stores and restaurants) will not be in the Revino bottles — not yet. That may be possible when Revino’s capacity for bottle collection is built out into more states. The winery has recently adopted many regenerative and sustainable practices, including:
- A new lightweight bottle design for nationally distributed wines that “precycles” glass by using less material in the first place, so less has to be recycled. Willamette’s 2023 Pinot Gris was the first to be bottled in lighter glass. Produced locally in Kalama, Washington, lighter glass bottles help reduce the emissions from glass manufacturing by around 180 metric tons of carbon dioxide.
- Willamette’s new labels on the nationally distributed wines are printed on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC®)certified paper made from 100% recycled paper. This change is equivalent to saving 8,380 pounds, or just over 4 tons of timber.
- Willamette’s bottle enclosures are made from 100% cork, certified through the FSC, and with lighter capsules. All bottle packaging materials are certified BPA-free, without Bisphenol A, a synthetic compound used in plastics.
- Willamette’s vineyards are certified sustainable through LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) and Salmon-Safe. The Estate in the Salem Hills has twelve solar water heating collectors and 116 kilowatts of photovoltaic generation capacity, which will reduce emissions from utility-supplied energy and prevent 1,780 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
- Willamette invests in four solar energy projects with Advanced Energy Systems. Clean Wind energy saves the equivalent of 61 cars off the road each year.
About Willamette Valley Vineyards
Founded in 1983 by CEO Jim Bernau with the dream of creating world-class Pinot Noir while serving as stewards of the land, Willamette Valley Vineyards has grown from a bold idea into one of the region’s leading wineries, earning the title “One of America’s Great Pinot Noir Producers” from Wine Enthusiast Magazine. In addition, all the vineyards have been certified sustainable through LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology) and Salmon-Safe programs. With 1,000 acres under vine, Willamette farms its Estate winery in the Salem Hills, sparkling winery Domaine Willamette in the Dundee Hills, pioneering Tualatin Estate Vineyard near Forest Grove and Elton Vineyard in the Eola-Amity Hills. The winery has expanded recently to include ten tasting rooms in Oregon, Washington and California — growth made possible by the stock ownership of many wine enthusiasts.
