A good wine on deposit at Oé , we sign! And you, what do you think ? We had good feedback on the bottles recorded by our partners where you buy your Oé wines and we wanted to say thank you!
The appearance of the glass bottle
Wine has been part of our daily lives since the dawn of time. We weren't there but we read that it appeared in Armenia more than 4000 years before Jesus Christ , it starts to date. Archaeologists discovered the Areni cellar during an excavation which would be the oldest in the world, at least from what we know anyway.
One thing is certain, during all these years, wine did not yet know its faithful companion as we know it today: the glass bottle . The wine wandered from container to container, before delighting the taste buds of a happy taster. From the amphora to the wineskin via the barrel , wine has seen green and unripe ones. At Oé, we are a little chauvinistic and we are proud to tell you that according to our sources , Lyon was, from the first century, the main manufacturer of barrels. If you want to know more, we suggest you read this article on wine containers . Interesting, right?
Wine knows a lot of materials and shapes of different containers ready to welcome it. Glass made its appearance very early in the world, 4500 years BC in Mesopotamia , almost at the same time as wine. Coincidence? We don't think...
The love story between glass and wine started very early and never ended in a carafe. This little joke is timely because it all started with the carafe. Fragile and difficult to work, glass is reserved for a very wealthy class and is mainly used to make decorative objects or carafes. Glass is therefore used for serving wine rather than for transport. At that time, the wine was sold in bulk in large barrels, we tell you about it in this article .
It was not until the famous English coal-fired ovens of the 18th century that glass bottles appeared as we know them today. It is also the result of our trade with the English that our good bottles of wine are 75cl.
Until the 1960s, the deposit was widespread everywhere, it was part of our habits and everything went well. But then, in 1963, an oil manufacturer offered single-use bottles on the market and highlighted the hygiene and practicality of this solution. Difficult not to resist the temptation, the world gets carried away (single use) and the deposit is forgotten little by little. Like a soldier who fell too soon in combat, the instruction gives way to the music of Auld Lang Syne and tells us "it's only a goodbye my brothers, it's only a see again…"
Back to setpoint
Yes, the locker was right, it's only a goodbye because today, it signs its big comeback ! Oé, it is the first wine brand to put the deposit back in place.
Nostalgia for times gone by or real ecological awareness ? One thing is certain, the return of the deposit is good news for the planet .
Apart from a few mass-produced wines, wine is not stored or served in plastic bottles . We are all used to buying our glass wine bottles whether in the grocery store , at the wine shop , in the supermarket , online or even directly from the winemaker .
Discover our article on wines for laying down
Let's be proud and happy, the recycling of glass has become widely democratized, it represents about 80% of glass in France and a bottle is 100% recyclable . Glass therefore has a real head start in the ecology race against plastic. Recycling is still very energy-intensive because the furnaces to melt the glass are constantly maintained at temperatures reaching 1500 degrees.
The returnable bottle prefers good baths of hot water to clean itself and come out as clean as new, rather than decomposing following a slightly too full-bodied hammam (for those who don't have it, the allusion was in reference to the recycling furnace). The reuse i, allows 33% of water, 76% of energy and 80% of greenhouse gases in less compared to the use of the furnaces necessary to manufacture a bottle again from cullet (recycled glass) and raw materials (sand, limestone, silica, etc.) . So, are you convinced?
All these reasons led us at Oé to relaunch the deposit system nationwide and we are very proud of it. Many partner grocery stores are attracted by this project and support us in the development of the deposit by offering our returnable bottles for sale . Find them in our points of sale right here .
Fx and Valérie from the team participated last year in the millésime bio fair . At trade fairs and wine fairs , you can meet independent winegrowers who, like us, are on the locker. Do not hesitate to chat with the winegrowers when you walk through the stands, they all have fascinating stories to tell you!
The locker with Oé, how does it work?
Setting up the deposit on a national scale is not an easy task, but as impossible is not Oé, we rolled up our sleeves and accepted the challenge!
Teamwork is strength so we teamed up with several consignment players all over France to be able to carry out our mission.
The journey of a returnable bottle
It is in our partner grocery stores that have set up the deposit that you will be able to discover our returnable bottles . They differ from our classic bottles by a small sticker , attesting that they can be consigned. Thanks to this badge, you certify that you are aware that this bottle is returnable and therefore, you pay more attention to your bottle.
When you buy this bottle, you pay your grocer a deposit, which will be returned to you when you return your bottle. You taste your bottle at home, you make sure that there is no waste in it , you rinse it and you keep it protected from UV rays . You bring it back to the grocery store whenever you want and you get your deposit back. Here you have brought your stone to the building in the large loop of the locker . Easy right?
Now we take over. Grocery stores that have set up the deposit keep empty bottles until a distributor collects them to store them at home. Once he has a lot of them, he takes them to a washer to make them more beautiful than beautiful! Once all clean , we buy these bottles for the next production . The rest of the magic happens at Maison Peguet , our bottler in Valence.
Our bottles are ready to delight you again and we avoid a lot of waste , great isn't it?
Although they are returnable, our bottles sold on the Oé site are not equipped with the sticker and you will therefore not be able to bring them back to a grocery store.
To find our points of sale that have set up the deposit, click here
A good organic wine on deposit
To please the planet while delighting your taste buds, that is our mission. For this, the container and the contents of the bottle are both responsible.
Our Oé winegrowers maintain their vineyards with respect for nature, with companion trees , hens for compost and even lambs. Yes yes, lambs, Charlotte from the team is a fan of them, and we understand her because the name is awfully cute and the sheep are grazing efficient for mowing the hectares of grass between the vines . There are thousands of responsible solutions , you have to take the time to look at nature and its benefits. Plants, animals, insects, so many workers of Mother Nature, ready to play a role in maintaining soil balance. We've written a few articles about it if you're interested:
Our Oé winegrowers put their know-how and their love even into organic winemaking , because, like real Druids, for the aromas to explode in the mouth, the preparation must be perfect. In monovarietal or blended , our good organic wines on deposit express the typicality of their native terroir .
The beautiful days are coming back, the aperitifs on the terrace are making their comebacks so make your palates dance with our good red wines , white wines and rosé wines .
We have worked hand in hand with our Oé winegrowers to offer you good AOP (Protected Designation of Origin) and AOC (Controlled Designation of Origin) wines from the best wine regions such as our Côtes-du-Rhône , our Languedoc , our Bordeaux , our Vaucluse or our Mediterranean of Provence .
