Cantina Goccia launches paper wine bottle filling station

Italian wine producer Cantina Goccia, the first drinks brand to release wine in a paper bottle, is opening a dedicated filling service to help other wine producers switch from glass to paper.

Cantina Goccia has commissioned the world’s first purpose-built filling machine designed exclusively for paper bottles.

The facility will be based at their winery in Umbria, Italy and will initially fill 1,000 bottles per hour with plans to double capacity in the future.

The paper bottles themselves have been designed by British packaging company Frugalpac, and are five times lighter than their glass counterparts. They are made up of a paper shell, food grade recyclable plastic pouch and metal screwcap.

Cantina Goccia has reportedly filled 114,000 paper Frugal bottles since launching its wine in the alternative format in June 2020. As many as 64,000 of these bottles have been filled with the producer’s own wine, with the other 50,000 used for third parties using the paper bottle, including UK-based alt packaging wine brand When in Rome.

Ceri Parke, Cantina Goccia co-owner, said of the new venture: “Whilst we were proud to be the first wine to be sold in a Frugal Bottle, we want to play our part in helping other brands to make the switch to a more environmentally friendly bottle.

“That’s why we made the decision move from our current semi-automated filling service to a much faster bespoke filling solution, designed specifically for paper Frugal Bottles.”

The brand has been working with the paper bottles since 2020, making Cantina Goccia “well equipped to test and transition to this new machine, which we helped to design, based on our extensive experience of working with the bottle and its filling requirements,” Parke said.

She added: “We believe the Frugal Bottle has the potential to massively decarbonise the drinks industry and we’re proud to be launching a dedicated new filling service to help other brands reduce their carbon footprint too.”