Gocce Zero Waste Project

The Contribution of Trebotti’s Violone DOP Tuscia Bio to Sustainable Wine through the Circular Economy

In the heart of Tuscia, the organic winery Trebotti has been running the “Gocce Zero Waste” project for 12 years now. It has chosen its finest wine to carry out this ambitious program.

The Gocce, ‘CRU’ of Violone DOP Tuscia Bio, is one of the winery’s most awarded wines.

It comes from the best Violone vineyard (a biotype of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo from Tuscia). The vineyard’s toponymic name is “Cipolletta” because wild spring onions have always grown in the soil. It is a small plot on pure clay with a 30% slope, yielding a limited quantity of grapes rich in polyphenols, structure, and sugars. Harvest occurs around mid-October with careful selection of the best bunches, followed by alcoholic fermentation in steel, then malolactic fermentation and aging in barriques for about 24 months. It is a wine of great longevity, benefiting from long bottle aging to tame its exuberant character and gain the elegance and complexity of Italy’s finest collectible red wines.

From its first vintage, 2009, it was already awarded by Slow Food as one of Italy’s best wines with VINO SLOW 2013 and by the Lazio Region among the top 10 wines with the CALIX AUREUS 2012.

The project was inspired at MUVIS, one of Europe’s largest wine museums, where many wooden crates from the 1970s can still be found, once used by old Vaselli cellars to deliver wines and then collect empty bottles for reuse. The goal is to reduce the environmental impact of wine production by adopting a bottle return system for reuse. Let’s explore what it’s about and why it’s an important step towards more sustainable agriculture.

Why Returnable Bottles?

Glass has always been the ideal material for wine, thanks to its ability to preserve the product’s organoleptic qualities. However, producing new glass bottles requires significant energy and natural resources. It is estimated that 30% to 40% of wine’s carbon footprint comes from bottle production. This is why reuse is a greener choice than recycling, which not only involves sorting by color and type but also melting glass at 1200 degrees, and in Europe most energy still comes from fossil fuels, producing high greenhouse gas emissions.

In some countries, like Canada, a recovery, sorting, washing, and resale system for used bottles is already in place, bringing significant environmental and economic benefits to the community and winegrowers. Thanks to AI and modern technologies, it is now possible to create efficient and cost-effective recovery systems.

In the current Italian context, and thanks to Trebotti’s size and local market organization, the bottle return system is a brave and innovative choice. While many companies still see bottles as single-use packaging, Trebotti invests in reuse, extending the life cycle and cutting waste. This way, every “Gocce” bottle is not just a container but part of a virtuous and circular system.

Let’s look closer at the “Gocce Zero Waste” Project

Trebotti launched the “Gocce Zero Waste” project to drastically cut the environmental impact of its bottles. The system collects empty Gocce bottles to send them for washing and reuse, along with all the special packaging of this wine. The three Botti brothers, owners of the winery (hence the name), created for Gocce, their flagship wine, a unique, original, and elegant packaging. Inspired by La Dolce Vita films, they dressed each bottle with an embroidered handkerchief as a label, which also acts as a drip catcher, just like in Fellini’s iconic restaurant scenes of the 70s.

Since its founding in 2003, Trebotti has prioritized KM0 distribution. With Rome so close by, it made no environmental sense for a small winery producing about 35,000 bottles a year to focus heavily on exports. Currently, 80% of production is sold locally through restaurants, specialty shops, and direct sales at the winery. With optimized logistics, Trebotti collects the embroidered handkerchiefs and the wax seal used as the cork capsule during the delivery of new products, operating within 100 km of the winery.

Currently, the project involves about 3,500 “Gocce” bottles each year, with a reuse rate of 24–25%. Every customer who returns the bottle and handkerchief gets a small €1.10 discount on their next purchase, encouraging active, conscious participation.

Thanks to the paper Achieving the circular economy through environmental policies: Packaging strategies for more sustainable business models in the wine industry recently published in Wiley Business Strategy and the Environment, the environmental and economic benefit of Trebotti’s Gocce Zero Waste project has been calculated and proven as a concrete application of the circular economy.

Benefits of the Returnable Bottle System:

Results show that by implementing this circular economy model, a company can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 8% to 90% and save 6% to 63% of its economic costs.

• Supporting the Local Community: Limiting distribution to within 100 km not only reduces transport’s environmental impact but also supports the local economy, building a stronger bond with local customers and partners.

 
Educating for Sustainability: The “Gocce Zero Waste” project also raises consumer awareness about the importance of reuse over recycling. Through communication initiatives and transparent practices, Trebotti aims to actively engage the public in its mission for a sustainable, zero-waste future.

This project has also attracted great interest from industry insiders and has already been featured as a success story in two trade magazine articles. The “Gocce Zero Waste” project is just one of many initiatives by Trebotti to reduce its environmental impact. With a biolake for wastewater phytoremediation, composting of pruning residues, and the use of ultra-light bottles, the winery shows how wine quality can go hand in hand with environmental sustainability.

Trebotti’s “Gocce Zero Waste” project is a real example (and an inspiration) of how the wine industry can contribute to a more sustainable future. Choosing returnable bottles means making a conscious choice that respects the environment and the territory. And for those who choose Trebotti, it also means enjoying high-quality organic wine while doing their part for the planet.