Salucop Group’s wine brand Basi del Diablo is celebrating its sustainability campaign today and the winemakers are “very pleased” with themselves. For eight wonderful years, the brand has not bought a single glass bottle for its wines and it has caught on with Basi del Diablo’s patrons. Partner restaurants such as Smoke Bar and Restaurant have been returning used Basi del Diablo bottles to the winemakers for years now and other customers are doing the same.

A year after Basi del Diablo’s revival, the company decided that it will only recycle its bottles to ensure that the wine company does not become a burden to the environment. It has been almost a decade since and the campaign has sustained itself. The company also utilises used bottles from other brands.

“A whopping 68% of the wine industry’s emissions come from transport and glass bottles. We couldn’t just sit back,” Sigrid Salucop, Salucop Group, Inc.’s CEO wrote in an email. Aside from being a winemaker, Salucop is a trained policy analyst specialising in Environmental Policy. “It would be a disgrace if I do not apply what I preach. It also makes things easier because I am doing this for my family’s wine brand.”

A few years back, Basi del Diablo only delivered its wines around Metro Manila through cyclists but that came to a halt when the brand decided to move back to Batac. The brand also plants a tree for every case of wine it sells. Hundreds of trees have already been planted in one of the Mangapit-Salucop properties in Ilocos Norte.

“We have not bought a single glass bottle in eight years!” Salucop repeated on Tuesday, 28 December, while communicating with the marketing team. “My sister and I are very pleased with ourselves and we are very thankful to everyone who supported and keeps supporting this campaign.”

“The emissions from wine are small compared to other industries but it does not invalidate our efforts. Every little thing counts when it comes to climate action and we are just happy that we are able to do our part,” Salucop added.