document: French embrace '' `` le vin plastique & rsquo ; French winemakers are brushing aside Gallic pride to bottle their wine in plastic to meet British demand for lighter , unbreakable plastic bottles for the summer festival season . In the Languedoc-Roussillon area , winegrowers from the Pepieux co-operative have been converted , albeit begrudgingly . `` Plastic bottles are difficult for me , '' said Pascal Fernandez , a winegrower . `` In the French culture , a glass bottle with a natural cork is engraved in our genes . '' He is among 17 growers who are turning to plastic PET bottles , ready to try anything after an eight-year sales slump that led to thousands of acres of vines in the Aude region being ripped up . One of their top clients , the Hugh Kevin & Robert co-operative , proposed bottling their Greener Planet wine in plastic , starting with an order for 75,000 bottles for Asda in Britain . Asda said a growing number of wine drinkers were shirking heavier , breakable glass in favour of tough , easily resealed , lighter plastic bottles . `` We are expecting positive sales over the following weeks , especially as we head towards the summer months and there are more occasions such as outdoor festivals and concerts , where traditional glass wine bottles are banned , '' said Lottie Parsons , a spokesman for Asda . Britons consume about one billion bottles of wine each year . PET wine bottles are now a familiar sight everywhere from Glastonbury to the Henley Regatta . Philippe Lauret , the president of Les Celliers Jean d'Alibert , which sells Mr Fernandez 's wine , said his firm expected to supply Asda with 360,000 bottles of wine in plastic bottles this year . Even the French are forgoing glass and cork when it comes to lower-grade wines . Last year Auguste Bonlouis sold more than three million plastic bottles to French supermarkets , a restaurant chain and the retailer Monoprix . However , shunning glass has appalled some purists . When the Boisset Family Estates switched to PET-bottled Beaujolais Nouveau in Japan , Canada and America , producers revolted . Such was the outcry that the Beaujolais winegrowers union has since banned bottling their wine , including Nouveau Beaujolais , in plastic . Meanwhile , high-end wine growers look down their noses at PET as totally unsuitable for wines destined for cellars , because the plastic is porous , allowing the wines to oxidise much faster than glass . `` It is absolutely unusable for wines destined to be kept between three and 40 years , as is the case for ours , '' said Patrick Maroteaux , whose Chateau Branaire-Ducru is a highly sought-after grand vin from the St Julien appellation .
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