Burgundy to New York by boat

Commercial sized sailing ships are back in fashion with Maison Joseph Drouhin from Burgundy shipping wine to New York.

The wine will ship on TransOceanic Wine Transport’s (TWOT) Anemos, the first new cargo sailing ship designed to dramatically lower the carbon and sulphur output when shipping by sea. The journey will not be a speedy one, with the journey between Le Havre (France) to New York expected to take approximately 2 weeks compared to a regular cargo ship in just over a week.

Compared to a traditional container ship which can carry over 220,000 tons, the sailing ships can only carry up to 1,100 tons. Also modern shipping uses containers to speed up loading and unloading. TWOT ships have holds that have the physical space for 18 x twenty foot containers, the wines are packed onto pallets, drastically increasing loading and unloading time which costs money.

Currently cargo shipping accounts for 4% of CO2 emissions and 10% of sulphur pollution. TWOT's carbon-free trans-Atlantic navigation reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 90% and sulphur dioxide emissions by 98% while guaranteeing the quality and integrity of the wines during the two-week crossing.