It’s not hard to envision the reaction a paper wine bottle would generate from hardcore oenophiles—my mind is riven with thoughts of monocles popping out of eyes, ladies in Victorian dresses swooning, and servants rushing about in search of smelling salts. But then perhaps I’ve read too much Dickens. Anyway, from The Guardian, via Two Sides, a company called GreenBottle is launching an alternative to the traditional glass wine bottle, which it claims will be on supermarket shelves sometime next year.

The paper bottle weighs only 55g compared with 500g for a glass bottle, meaning transport costs will be hugely reduced. In addition, its carbon footprint is only 10% of that of a glass bottle. The paper bottle is compostable and decomposes in weeks.

The company is already testing a paper milk bottle (is it really a “bottle” if it's made of paper? Would that not be a carton?) which, it says, is proving popular with consumers. Well, yes, but milk is something else entirely...

“How wine looks is incredibly important; it’s such an arcane business,” said Adam Lechmere, news editor at Decanter magazine. “Consumers don’t care so much about whether wine is green or not. It's not like meat or veg. We don’t interrogate wine like we do a chicken.”

“Interrogate a chicken.” There’s a phrase to conjure with, preferably after a few glasses of wine. Well, if boxed wines can generate decent reviews, why not paper-bottled wines?

“Greenbottle’s products are currently made in Turkey but a plant is due to open in Cornwall soon.”

We shall have to dispatch our own Andy Tribute to investigate...