Greenopia is releasing its updated "Greenest Wine" rankings for 2010 and you will be interested in the findings.  Ordinarily we assume the wineries are committed to being organic and vintners are dedicated to being environmentally conscience and for the most part they are; when it comes to their farming practices.  But surprisingly, wineries lose a lot of credit when it comes to their packaging.  Glass wine bottles, which have been a mainstay of the wine industry, are not the "greenest" choice. The production impacts of glass and the large amount of material needed, make the bottles an environmentally problematic choice for a wine container. 

Only a handful of wineries in Greenopia's ratings have addressed the packaging issue and therefore score well on Greenopia's Wine Rating Criteria.  The "greenest", earning 4 leafs, is Benziger Family Winery,  a small winery in Sonoma.  By light-weighting their bottles, using solar energy, buying carbon offsets and being certified biodynamic, Benziger has made the biggest improvement and has had a positive impact .  French Rabbit, a French winery, also earned 4 leafs and a major thumbs up for their Tetra-Prisma containers, which are cool containers that are bio-based and collapsible.  These containers could possibly change the direction of packaging in the wine industry because they significantly reduce the amount of energy used when compared to typical glass wine bottles. 

Greenopia is releasing its updated "Greenest Wine" rankings for 2010 and you will be interested in the findings.  Ordinarily we assume the wineries are committed to being organic and vintners are dedicated to being environmentally conscience and for the most part they are; when it comes to their farming practices.  But surprisingly, wineries lose a lot of credit when it comes to their packaging.  Glass wine bottles, which have been a mainstay of the wine industry, are not the "greenest" choice. The production impacts of glass and the large amount of material needed, make the bottles an environmentally problematic choice for a wine container. 

Only a handful of wineries in Greenopia's ratings have addressed the packaging issue and therefore score well on Greenopia's Wine Rating Criteria.  The "greenest", earning 4 leafs, is Benziger Family Winery,  a small winery in Sonoma.  By light-weighting their bottles, using solar energy, buying carbon offsets and being certified biodynamic, Benziger has made the biggest improvement and has had a positive impact .  French Rabbit, a French winery, also earned 4 leafs and a major thumbs up for their Tetra-Prisma containers, which are cool containers that are bio-based and collapsible.  These containers could possibly change the direction of packaging in the wine industry because they significantly reduce the amount of energy used when compared to typical glass wine bottles. 

Also worth mentioning is Franzia, or as some refer to as the "wine in the box." While  Franzia hasn't adopted organic or biodynamic farming practices as of this time, they still maintain a smaller footprint then most wineries out there because of their box.  More ratings of the wineries can be found in Greenopia's newest Wine Rankings on Greenopia.com.