I'm not prone to reproducing wine reviews but in this case I just couldn't resist...

LCBO thinking inside the box
Jul. 26, 2006. 06:12 AM
GORDON STIMMELL
GORD ON GRAPES

The mass conversion by the LCBO from bottles to Tetra Pak wine is hitting high gear. The idea is that this is environmentally friendly. In fact, these complex cartons are the toughest thing in your Blue Box to recycle and one of the most expensive to process.

The LCBO took five days to get back to me with an answer when I asked where its wine Tetra Paks are being recycled. I found it strange that the monopoly pushing this huge program so hard could not come up with an immediate answer. If a clean, local, well-run recycling system existed in Ontario, I am sure the LCBO would be running buses of journalists out to view it. Well, it isn't.

The latest development is the LCBO-mentored opening of a spiffy new Tetra Pak manufacturing plant in Richmond Hill to keep pace with its artificially generated demand. The LCBO did run a press bus out to this grand opening. A second plant is slated to open in Niagara in the fall to handle tanker-loads of foreign vino being packaged as "Cellared in Canada" wine.

Tetra Paks have three main ingredients: paperboard, polyethylene plastic, aluminum foil. To break them down, you need a pulp mill, which soaks them in water, then shreds them. The plastic and aluminum is deposited as a sludge. Little of the paper actually gets recycled, but what does goes into such things as toilet paper.

The used Tetras that are recycled make it to Michigan, where there are two plants to process them. But top environmentalists believe most Tetras are still winding up as garbage in Michigan landfill.

The Tetra Pak initiative brilliantly diverts attention away from recycling glass. The LCBO has resisted fiercely for years the idea of a deposit on wine bottles, which works so well at our beer stores.

As it stands now, different coloured glass bottles too often get broken up in the Blue Box process, cross-contaminating them so they become recyclable only for such things as fodder for roadbeds.

Entering an LCBO store is beginning to resemble an Easter egg hunt or a visit to a Chuck E. Cheese balloon party, what with all the coloured, glitzy, tinfoil cartons decked out in fun, Day-Glo colours. Over the last month or so, 17 new boxed wines hit shelves, including the first ever from an Ontario winery.

Recently, I spent a very sober Saturday carefully tasting all 17 with friends, one by one, nursing the vain hope that one would rise above mediocrity, or even perhaps be good. It was a crushing experience. And I am certain that pouring these wines down the sink later was not so wonderful for the environment.

OUT OF THE BOX: The first Ontario winery to launch is Lakeview Cellars, with four Out of the Box wines priced at $12.95 a litre. I find an honest irony in the words in small print on the carton: "Recyclable — where facilities exist." Lakeview produces some fine Ontario wines, but these are not. They are substandard-tasting leftover wines from other countries trucked into Ontario and packaged here.

Tellingly, Out of the Box wines are all non-vintage, which means they can blend different years together. This would account for the old, oxidized flavours (dried dates, figs) of the Cabernet Sauvignon and its aromas of salty potato chips and cheesies. The Sauvignon Blanc has a peanuts aroma (like ladybug-infested wines) with a sour cider vinegar smell and a bitter finish. The Merlot is better, but tasted cooked, like stewed prunes. The Chardonnay has a nice pear aroma, but the flavours are weak and quickly died.

Not an auspicious beginning. Other Ontario wineries are soon coming out with their own boxes, including Pelee Island Winery, Colio Estate Wines and Vincor International (with its Sawmill Creek line going into Tetras). None of these will be 100 per cent Ontario grape wines with VQA labels.
In fact, VQA executive director Laurie McDonald is cautious, even though the LCBO has been pressing for 100 per cent Ontario wines to migrate over to Tetras. "VQA regulations say glass only, but we are doing research on the Tetras," says McDonald. "We want to assess oxygen and ageability factors associated with the package."

McDonald adds: "A big issue is the image of quality, in consumers' minds. The second issue for us is do we need `best before' dates on such packages if we ever do agree industry wide to try the Tetras."

BOTTER FAMILY: Italians love big families, right? So the Botter family has come out with Tetras replete with their first names and caricatures of their faces on three new 2005 wines made from organic grapes. Each is $12.85 a litre.

The "Anna" Pinot Grigio Chardonnay is the best, with mellow pear and bubblegum traits. The "Alex" Marche region Sangiovese is puckery, with stewed, sweetish plum flavours. The "Luca" Nero d'Avola from Sicily tastes of sour cherries, figs and bitter wood. A fellow taster opined: "I swear I've had cough syrup that tasted like this."

SOLUNA: Italian producer Lamberti has two new boxed wines from the Venezie region. The 2004 Merlot has a brownish tinge and tastes a bit oxidized, reminiscent of dried figs, prunes and barnyard. The 2005 Pinot Grigio is dominated by floral musk, some melon and sour green, unripe pear — not pleasant. Each is $12.95 a litre.

BANROCK STATION: A few Tetras feature wines, such as Banrock Station, that have long been on shelves in bottle. Their quality tends to be better.

From Oz, Banrock Station 2004 Shiraz has nice cloves, black cherry and cedar dimensions, and is quite drinkable, but not great. Banrock Station 2005 Unwooded Chardonnay sports tropical crushed pineapple, melon and mango flavours, and a hint of sweet apple on the end. The Banrock Station 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon shows decent blackberry, cherry skins and cedar notes, also quite quaffable. The chard is $12.60 a litre, the reds $13.90 each.

A word of caution: these Tetras are messy and can glub suddenly all over your nice tablecloth. A picnic table is a preferred venue.

ALICE WHITE: Also from Down Under, Alice White 2005 Semillon Chardonnay has minerals, floral lemon and pear flavours, but is a tad green tasting. Alice White 2005 Cabernet Shiraz has black cherry and pomegranate flavours and is a bit skunky. Neither is near as nice as Banrock's wines. These come in 500-millilitre Tetra Prisma Paks, at $7.95 each.

VENDANGE: The California line of these I have reviewed before, but the 2005 Pinot Grigio is new and at least drinkable. It shows mild pear and apple spice with a bit of greenness. One of my fellow tasters commented: "It isn't awful! It's just not very good." It's $6.95 for a 500-millilitre.

RABBIT: Added to the Boisset line hopping around on shelves are two reserve-level wines. I was hoping for a lovely white to make up for its regular weak-kneed Rabbit Chardonnay in a box, which one taster dissed as: "This wine is so not there." Now, "Family Reserve" traditionally means, in the wine world, the very best lots reserved by the family for their personal consumption.

French Rabbit Family Reserve White tastes like it is blended from leftover lots after the good stuff went to regular bottles. I was hoping to see redemption to account for the $17.95 a litre. A blend of chardonnay, viognier, sauvignon blanc, marsanne roussanne and muscat grapes, this reeks of honeysuckle, peach, musk and rose petals, and has a very sour end, like biting into an unripe white peach. A neighbour said it simply: "I don't call this wine."

The French Rabbit Reserve Red, also $17.95 and non-vintage, blends syrah, merlot, pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, grenache and mourvedre grapes in an assemblage that tastes bitter, like sour cherry, blackberry seeds and leathery plum. My neighbour summed it up with: "Tastes like a dishrag after you've cleaned up the spilt red wine." I found that the fruit stops, but the bitterness lingers long afterward.

If these boxed wines are the best that wineries can do, after the LCBO put out its massive call to producers in all countries to start the Tetra theatrics, we are in big trouble. There's only so much shelf space, no matter how you stack it. And many really wonderful wines in bottle are going to vanish as a result.

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Today I finally had a chance to rise above the details of changes to Ontario Regulation 347 (Waste) as proposed in the Ontario Ministry of Environment’s new Regulatory Amendments to Facilitate Waste Recycling, Use of Alternative Fuels and New and Emerging Waste Management Technologies. As I turned my attention away from the draft regulation and read the associated EBR posting I came across a real gem – there in all its elegant simplicity was the Extended Producer Responsibility Systems (EPRS) proposal.

Without reproducing the environment ministry's description in its entirety, the EPRS model involves the “producer” (manufacturer, brand-owner or first importer) or a voluntarily convened collective of producers establishing a self- or third-party operated management system for spent products. All costs of the system are to be borne by the producers (though there would be a natural tendency to try to diffuse costs through the product chain) and all arrangements between producers (i.e., cost allocation) and service providers (i.e., charges for service) would be negotiated and set via commercial agreements and contracts. Ministry approval of an EPRS would require details of the system’s operation and regular reporting of the final disposition of wastes to the ministry (very important to be sure).

Back in my March 13th blog post Wither EPR?, I described such a property-rights-based model for end-of-life product management. To save you looking for it, here is what I wrote in context of a notional EPR program for waste TVs:

“What about the formation and operation of a Producer Responsibility Organization (PRO) for waste TVs? What about the 'funding mechanism' (i.e., fee scheme) for collecting and processing TVs to the 'environmental standard'? What about all the regulatory and bureaucratic clap-trap that normally accompanies 'stewardship' programs?

In a property-rights-based regulatory approach, all of these things are immaterial to the regulator. The producers -- the waste TV title holders -- sort themselves out to meet the environmental standard in managing their wastes. Producers could band together in a collective (e.g., Electronic Product Stewardship Canada -- EPSC comes to mind) to manage their wastes (much as electronic producers do to create technical standards for CDs, DVDs etc.). Like any other aspect of business, contractual obligations and charges for covering the costs of administration, collection and recycling services are the subject of commercial negotiations between producers (or the producer collective) and service providers -- what prices are actually established are also irrelevant to the regulator.”

Well as I read it this is exactly what the ministry is proposing with its EPRS model – right here in Ontario: home of the infamous Waste Diversion Ontario!

Whoa there! WDO! What about the WDO? Well my guess is if enacted EPRS is going to cure what is ailing reuse and recycling in Ontario – the WDO.

How so? Consider that under the Waste Diversion Act “stewards” can set up Industry Stewardship Plans (ISPs) outside of an approved Industry Funding Organization (IFO) program – imagine a fast food chain setting up a packaging management system independent of the approved Blue Box program via an ISP (but only after having suffered through being part of the collective blue box program). Well, the EPRS proposal goes one step further by effectively saying producers can set up a program entirely outside of the WDO.

Now ask yourself why any producer or group of producers would want to be forced to work in an Industry Funding Organization not of their choosing? Who wants to run the WDO Board gauntlet to try to get their stewardship program approved when they could deal directly with policymakers and endure a relatively clear and simple approval process? Can someone remind me why it makes sense to have the soft drink industry, beer industry, consumer packaging users, retailers, the LCBO and newspaper industry vote on whether to approve a program on scrap tires or household hazardous/special wastes when we have folks in the Ontario Public Service well qualified to do just that?

While it might make sense for the Stewardship Ontario to remain under the Waste Diversion Act so it can continue to enjoy a 50 per cent discount on blue box services, where is the impetus for any other steward to hang around the WDO? Who really wants to cover the WDO’s administrative costs and help pay back the packaging brand-owners their $600K+ loan to the WDO? If you had to be regulated would you not pick the least troublesome and least costly regulatory option?

So all that has to happen is that the environment ministry designates a waste under the EPA or WDA and producers can pick how they go. My bet is that they go the EPRS route.

In the last few months a prototype EPRS type program for fluorescent tubes has been convened by the Recycling Council of Ontario which involves the Toronto District School Board (the waste generator), two fluorescent tube manufacturers and Fluorescent Lamp Recyclers Inc. The approvals for operating the waste management system were graciously expedited by the ministry and took only a few months to complete. The program will be up and running in September.

All those in favor of EPRS write in to the Minister early and write to her often – The EBR comment period ends on September 18th.

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