Environmental sustainability in the wine industry

We are reducing the environmental impact of our winery all along the production chain. This starts with the way the grapes are grown, includes how water, energy and waste are managed in the winery operations, and ends with the choice of packing materials and modes of transport to get the final product to our clients. It also includes how we mediate all these aspects and the responsibility of both producers AND consumers to the many clients we receive at our cellar door.

Locally and manually harvested grapes

We hand-harvest our grapes at vineyards located within a few kilometers from the winery in Belém hence significantly reducing the environmental impact of heavy harvest machines and transportation. The vineyards are in mixed environmental areas, with rivers, fruit orchards, hedges, forests, meadows and of course vineyards.

Sustainable Packaging Design

We use lightweight glass bottles for all our wines. This reduces the carbon footprint during bottle production, transport and recycling by 30% compared to a standard 600gr bottle, and by more than 60% compared to a heavy “luxurious” wine bottle weighting more than 1,2 kg. For us, this means a relatively important commercial sacrifice as a majority of consumers continues to associate high wine quality and value with heavier and more ostentatious bottle models. We are actively lobbying here for a change in the public aesthetics of wine bottles in order to make ultra lightweight bottles a new standard.

We also lobby for the creation of a series of European standard wine bottles that can be re-used (instead of being recycled), consuming only 30% of the energy that would be necessary to recycle. We understand that wine is a very internationalized industry with bottles circulating in various export markets. Hence we advocate that only public policy regulation at an international level (starting for example at EU level) will generate viability for the creation of larger-scale bottle cleaning facilities, as they exist in the beer brewing industry for example.These could be easily run by the existing organizations that currently deal with packaging waste at national EU country levels.

To reuse bottles also implies adapting the material used for bottle labels to detach these more easily once the wine has been drunk, like the paper labels on jam jars or beer bottles for example. In the past 20 years, paper labels in the wine sector have gone the opposite way and became highly water resistant, using heavy sophisticated papers and clue that does require chemical agents to be dissolved. While these provide a bottle presentation that even after hours or days in the fridge still look and feel pristine, it seems the wrong way to go if we think about an integrated solution to re-use – and hence clean and sanitize – standard wine bottles in a near future.

Regarding cardboard boxes to transport wine bottles, we must say as much as we like the European packaging waste initiative in its principle, it is on the ground very hard to implement especially for the very large number of smaller wine producers that define the wine sector in Europe. The current system of creating a packing waste treatment “account” in every single EU member state is very costly in some countries, extremely complicated in other countries, and eventually only viable in a handful of EU member states. We are happy to talk to government executives or legislators about how we feel this could be made more operational on the ground.

We use naturally grown high quality and carbon neutral cork produced in Portugal, with a significantly lower impact than any other type of synthetic cork or metallic cap screw. From 2022, all our bottle capsules will be made of biodegradable sugar cane residues.

Chemical-agent-free steam cleaning

Since 2021, we use a hot steam generator to sanitize all of our cellar equipment, tanks and oak barrels. This allows us to reduce to close to zero the use of aggressive, high-pH chemical cleaning agents and thus produce pH-neutral waste water.

Inverter technology

We have invested in energy saving inverter technology that allows our pumps and cooling machines to consume only exactly the amount of energy that is needed by the system at each given moment.

Packaging material

We use recycled paperboard and cardboard for all our packaging and comply with the recycling programs of the countries to which we deliver. We continue to refuse to work with delivery companies that require compulsory polystyrene bottle packaging, which we believe is totally out of line with current knowledge and technology. We live by the sea and can actually observe, with every large high tide, the sheer amount of small polystyrene bubbles swept up at the beach. We do not want to see our packing material end up this way.

Grey Water Treatment

When conceiving the winery, we have included a waste water treatment plant under the floor of the cellar door. You can actually see the four manhole covers under the large table, which give maintenance access to the treatment plant. This system reduces the biomaterial impact (CBO) by more than 90%. The rest is easily dealt with by the public water treatment plant our neighborhood.

Reducing our impact on oceans

We live and work by, and with, the ocean and have spent a lot of time thinking about how we – and other wine producers – can reduce their impact upon these oceans. We have also thought very concrete actions by consumers to reduce this impact either directly or by sharing their preoccupations with the wine industry. Here go to lists of action.

O que a indústria do vinho pode fazer para reduzir o seu impacto ambiental nos oceanos

• Gerencie sua pegada de energia usando garrafas ultraleves que reduzem tremendamente os custos de material e energia a longo prazo ao longo de toda a cadeia de valor e de reciclagem
• Use embalagens biocompostáveis que possam ser recicladas, como plásticos PLA e produtos de celulose reciclados. Pare de usar poliestireno!
• Trate as águas residuais da sua adega antes de irem para o sistema de esgoto público, especialmente durante a vindima, quando as águas residuais têm um CBO muito alto
• Use a tecnologia inverter energeticamente eficiente para bombas, motores e sistemas de refrigeração na adega, criando custos de longo prazo muito menores para todos
• Visite a Adega Belém Urban Winery onde pode ver estas medidas a funcionar, e discuta connosco onde podemos melhorar ainda mais!

O que os consumidores de vinho podem fazer para reduzir o impacto ambiental da indústria nos oceanos

• Não compre vinhos em garrafas pesadas ou ultra pesadas, mesmo que pareçam mais prestigiosas. Garrafas de vidro pesadas não aumentam a qualidade do vinho e são estritamente ostensivas.
• Não aceite pedidos por correio que usem embalagens de poliestireno.
• Pergunte ao seu vendedor de vinhos quais medidas as adgas tomam para minimizar o impacto de energia e desperdício.
• Peça aos políticos que elegeu para representá-lo ou -la que criem legislação para tornar o vinho rastreável em relação às suas respectivas vinhas e adegas de origine!
• Prefira pagar mais por um vinho feito com amor ao meio ambiente, ao produto e a si: o consumidor!
• Visite-nos na Adega Urbana da Adega Belém, para discutir estas questões – com um delicioso copo de vinho.