The end of wine glass bottles, sustainability in the wine industry, and the future of wine e-commerce with Santiago Navarro

Summary

In this episode of Dolia Talks, Giovanni Binello speaks with Santiago Navarro, founder of Packamama, about why wine’s biggest barrier to modern distribution may be the bottle itself. Drawing on his earlier experience building the UK online retailer Vinopic Wines, Santiago argues that round glass is a fundamentally poor “distance selling” format, heavy, fragile, space-inefficient and carbon-intensive, helping explain why wine, despite being a natural “long tail” online category, has underperformed in e-commerce. He positions himself as a “wine guy in packaging” to stress that winemakers’ needs (inertness, preservation, gas barrier performance and speaking the industry’s language) are essential to any viable innovation, and explains why Packamama uses recycled PET with barrier boosters and UV protection over alternatives like aluminium or paper-lined packs. Throughout, he frames Packamama’s value around sustainability, logistics efficiency and branding, aiming to become an “Intel Inside” trust mark that helps consumers feel confident in a new format, while noting adoption varies by market and use-case (from younger sustainability-driven buyers to older consumers valuing portability for boats and travel). Santiago anticipates regulation, carbon and packaging taxes will accelerate change, believes better packaging can unlock stronger D2C and online models, and says the biggest obstacle is human resistance to risk, urging the industry to stop talking and start acting, because the cost of inaction on climate and emissions is rapidly becoming the greater commercial risk.