When it comes to climate change, it’s the little things you never think about that could have a big impact. In the case of wine, research has shown that 27 percent of the emissions produced from wine-making comes from the bottle, and a further 13 percent comes from the shipping of that bottle. 

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We put wine in glass, despite the fact that 97 percent of wine globally is consumed inside a year. Winemakers have struggled with this fact for a few years, so when Matt and James Dicey renamed their Central Otago wine label Dicey a couple of years back, the time felt right to do something different – like put wine in a box. Gasp.

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Bear with us. The New York Times reported last year that switching to wine in a box for the vast majority of wine drunk rather than cellared would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of 400,000 cars. 

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Forget memories of student parties and a box of headache-inducing chardonnay: Dice by Dicey includes two litres of 2021 Central Otago pinot noir, in a fetching box designed by the team at Inhouse. “This isn’t a cheap offering of wine to be smashed willy-nilly,” says Matt Dicey. “It’s the opposite.” 

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That’s 2.65 bottles of wine and it’ll keep for up to a month: after all, if you’re anything like us, you end up tipping out the last third of a bottle after it’s been in the fridge for three days. As Dicey notes, you can have one glass with dinner, and have another one a week later. 

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The technology isn’t perfect – wine in a box doesn’t keep, and you still have to recycle the bag with your soft plastics. “But you can’t wait until it’s perfect,” says Dicey. “You have to get started with the technology that’s available now. It starts a conversation, gathers momentum and means we’ll be ready to make improvements as the tech does get better.” 

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Dicey
dicey.nz