From Dublin wine shop to Béziers wine ship 2009 March 14

From Dublin wine shop to Béziers wine ship

       

2009 March 14

tags: Beziers, Canal Du Midi, Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon, wine

by irishherault

The wine ship is back in Dublin. The Etoile de France arrived at Sir John Rogerson Quay on Friday, and will be in town throughout the weekend doing tastings and promotions and parties and so on.

It’s just one of Fair Wind Wine’s growing fleet of sailing ships that use the ultra green power of wind and water to bring wines from the Languedoc to Ireland, Britain and further afield.

The eco-friendly wine ships use wind and sail power

The wines are collected from suppliers around Béziers, then taken by barge along the Canal du Midi and the Canal du Garonne, arriving at Bordeaux on the west coast. Then the final leg, taking about four days on average (given the sailing and weather conditions of the past 100 years), is by sail across the sea to Ireland.

The petrol costs and carbon emissions are incredibly small compared with modern shipping methods.

Finally - wait for it - the ship will return to France with an equivalent tonnage of crushed glass for recycling into wine bottles at factories in Bordeaux and Beziers.

Overall it’s a fantastic idea, and the brains behind this green wines venture is Frédéric Albert. He established the shipping firm Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile (CTMV)  in 2005.

“Time accelerated in the 19th century with the advent of the industrial age. People have forgotten that time is needed to make wine and other products like fruit and vegetables. If it takes a bit longer, it’s not a problem. We need to learn from the past if we are to ‘go back to the future’ and reduce pollution.”
- Frédéric Albert, Compagnie de Transport Maritime à la Voile

”I wanted to do something for the planet, as well as for the wines of the Languedoc,” he says. By mid-2008 he’d brought seven private investors together to contribute 70% of the business’s start-up costs (some reports say it’s about €50 million), and an initial list of 50 local wine producers had been lined up to supply them.

“We chose the best wine in the area, but it must also be made in a sustainable way, using as many natural products as possible,” Frédéric explains.

First wine ship arriving in Dublin last year

Last year it all finally came together. The first commercial cargo of wine shipped from France by sail since the late 1800s arrived in Dublin port. Each bottle included a label with a stylised ship logo and the slogan “Carried by sailing ship, a better deal for the planet”.

“One of my grandfathers was a winemaker and one was a sailor,” Frédéric says, so it’s a perfect match.  He worked in a Dublin wine shop for four years before moving back to the Languedoc to put his ideas in place, so he also has a good idea of the Irish market.

He agrees that French wine was both misrepresented and overpriced compared with the rest of the market. He sells the wine from the Languedoc-Roussillon at around €6 to €20 a bottle.

And each bottle saves an estimated 140 grams (4.9 ounces) of carbon dioxide emissions per bottle, compared with a regular shipment. Sea transport is now responsible for 2.7%  of the world’s total carbon emissions.

“This is not just about wine and sailboats, we wanted to show the world that it is possible to build an economically viable model that respects the planet,”
- Frédéric Albert

Who to contact in Ireland:

Jehan Ashmore
Telephone: +353 (1) 275 1876
Email: marinesearch@gmail.com or export.vins@ctmv.eu

Source : http://irishherault.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/green-wines-from-languedoc-to-dublin/