Drappier recycles Champagne bottles into candle gift set

Demonstrating its environmentally-friendly credentials, Champagne Drappier is offering an innovative new gift box that includes a bottle of its wine with a scented candle, itself made out of a recycled Champagne bottle.

Called Coffret Incandescence, the gift box is available for a number of different Drappier cuvées, including the Carte d’Or, Brut Nature, Rosé Nature, Rosé de Saignée or Blanc de Blancs, with the candle matching the bottle in the box.

To make the candle, a former Champagne bottle has been hand cut and polished, then filled with a high quality soy wax.

The gift box itself is made from 100% recyclable cardboard from forests with an environmental certification of sustainability, while the Champagne Drappier bottle itself is also now among one of the most environmentally friendly in Champagne.

The house commissioned a bespoke bottle mould in 2013, under the guidance of Michel Drappier, with the first Champagnes house inside the revamped bottle emerging from the producer’s cellars in 2017.

The prime motivation for the new bottle was to improve the producer’s environmental credentials, as well as the quality of its Champagne.

Crucially, Drappier’s bespoke bottle design is lighter, employs more recycled glass, is darker, and lets in less oxygen through the neck than a standard Champagne bottle.

According to Drappier, the bottle contains 87% recycled glass – which he said he believed was the highest content of any Champagne bottle – and uses brown glass because it filters 99% of ultraviolet light, compared to green glass, which prevents 92% of the damaging rays reaching the wine.

In 2016, Champagne Drappier laid claim to being the first Champagne house to reduce its carbon footprint to zero after a 10-year effort, having achieved generated 75% of its electricity from solar panels.

The producer avoids using air conditioning in its cellars by utilising a free cooling system, with isolated air conditioning systems strategically used throughout the property, and has also invested in a wind turbine company in India.

The gift set carries an RRP of between €50-70, depending on the cuvée it contains.