Drink of the Week: Bonny Doon Carbon Nay Rosé Wine

It probably doesn’t shock you to hear that thick glass bottles have heavy environmental footprints. What might be more surprising is how much of a problem glass presents for wine, an industry deeply connected to the climate. I’ve seen estimates that glass is responsible for anywhere from 29% to 50% of wine’s carbon impact. As a result, ecologically minded producers are experimenting with new ways to package wines. Case in point? Bonny Doon‘s Carbon Nay, a Provençal-style rosé that comes in a bottle made from 94% recycled paperboard.

Released in spring 2024, Carbon Nay is a fascinating development for people who love wine and the planet. Not only does the unconventional bottle look cool—which shouldn’t matter in conversations about climate change, and obviously does when we’re talking about realigning consumer behaviors—but it’s also easy to recycle and weighs a fraction of its glass predecessors. A 12-bottle case of Carbon Nay is 24 pounds, whereas most cases of wine clock in closer to 40 pounds.

Most importantly, Carbon Nay is delicious. There’s bright strawberries and raspberries on the nose and palate, plus lots of lemon juice and zest to keep things crisp, and a dry, refreshing finish. While some people relegate rosé to summertime, I politely disagree. This one pairs beautifully with everything from grain salads and root veggies to creamy chowders and curries. It would make a nice Thanksgiving apéritif, too.

This is probably a good time to address something that wine nerds (my people!) may already be thinking. While this bottle works for Carbon Nay, it wouldn’t fit every winery or all wines. Among other things, paperboard doesn’t have the longevity of glass, meaning it’s better suited to wines you plan to drink while they’re young, like many rosés. 

Thankfully, paperboard isn’t the only way to buck heavy glass bottles. California’s Tablas Creek Vineyard started putting its renowned wines in lightweight bottles back in 2010, a change that general manager Jason Haas says has saved the company some $2.2 million. In 2021, Alois Legeder, a biodynamic producer in Alto Adige, Italy, created a glass bottle that weighs 420 grams (a little less than a pound). An alternative to the standard 650 grams (nearly 1 1/2 pounds), the design was deliberately unpatented so other wineries can use it, too.

These sorts of developments climb up the food chain and create industry-wide changes. The Sustainable Wine Roundtable, a global collective devoted to sharing resources and establishing eco-friendly standards, recently set a goal to decrease wine bottle weights by 25% by 2026. On October 16, 2024, Whole Foods, the massively influential national retailer where Carbon Nay made its commercial debut, named “more sustainable sips” and environmentally friendly packaging among its top 10 food and beverage trends of 2025. 

Change isn’t always easy, but bottles like Carbon Nay set powerful precedents. When it comes to creating a more sustainable wine industry, the juice is worth the squeeze. $16.99, search wholefoodsmarket.com by ZIP code.