A Lighter Future – The Sustainable Wine Roundtable Launches the Sparkling Bottle Weight Accord

July 28, 2026 — The Sustainable Wine Roundtable is pleased to announce the launch of its latest initiative, a Sparkling Bottle Weight Accord (SBWA). This follows very positive uptake globally for its still wine Bottle Weight Accord, launched in November 2023, where companies undertook reaching an average bottle weight for an empty 75cl wine bottle of 420g.

Because of the variety of different styles of sparkling wine, from semi-sparkling, through tank (Charmat) method wines, to traditional method wines such as Champagne where the second fermentation takes place in the bottle, the SWR needed to take into account the different levels of atmospheric pressure placing restrictions on the safe levels of lightweighting practical in this case.

The SWR has therefore set evidence-based weight reduction targets to enable measurable lightweighting across these key sparkling formats:

• Semi sparkling wine (up to 3 bar of pressure)                                  550g
• Tank / Charmat method wine (between 3-5 bar of pressure)        600g  
• Traditional method (between 5-7 bar)                                               780g

Research Director Dr Peter Stanbury comments:

“After a good deal of work to bring this together, and inspired by the engagement and progress achieved by the still-wine bottle weight accord, we’re pleased to launch this new initiative. We are obviously mindful of the unique challenges where contents are under pressure, and safety is a key consideration. This is why we have chosen a three-tiered target structure as the foundation of the new accord. We look forward to working closely with founder partners to deliver more efficiencies and energy savings through its implementation.”

Founder signatories to the accord include the Swedish monopoly Systembolaget, Alko, Perlage of Italy, Vinarchy, The Wine Society and Ellis Wines. Each signatory will undertake to introduce phased reductions within their own procurement and production processes, as relevant to their role in the supply chain. Exceptions are permitted to sparkling wine vintages already bottled. The accord will, therefore, apply to the majority of 750ml sparkling wines sold, produced, or supplied by participating members.

Holly Ellis‑Lake at Ellis Wines says

“We’ve already seen through the still wine Bottle Weight Accord that small, practical changes can make a real difference when producers, importers and customers are all pulling in the same direction. Sparkling wine clearly has its own technical considerations, but that makes this new accord all the more useful. We’re pleased to be a founding signatory and look forward to having constructive conversations with our sparkling wine and Champagne producers about where sensible reductions can be made”.

The still wine Bottle Weight Accord (BWA) has achieved remarkable uptake in its 3-year history.

The Still Wine BWA already covers more than 2.5 billion bottles produced annually, avoiding over 448,000 tonnes of CO2 (equivalent to the emissions of 73,000 households).

For more information about the Sparkling Bottle Weight Accord, please visit

For more about the Sustainable Wine Roundtable in general, please see

About SWR
The Sustainable Wine Roundtable (SWR), an independent global platform dedicated to advancing sustainability in the wine industry. SWR is a membership organisation with more than 130 members reflecting the whole wine supply, and operating globally. Its role is to catalyse change in sustainability in the wine sector.