City Scape Winery tackles Greenville's glass recycling issue one bottle at a time

Sometimes, you just have to look around and start with yourself, at least that’s the way Debra and Josh Jones see it. That’s why the entreprenuring couple that owns City Scape Winery have launched a new program that offers a glimmer of solution more than a year after the county’s decision to end glass recycling.

The initiative, if successful, could help City Scape save thousands of glass bottles from the landfill this year.

The program doesn’t so much recycle the bottles as it reuses them. The Joneses now use an FDA-certified method to clean and sterilize each bottle that allows them to re-use each one. And because City Scape no longer uses traditional paper labels, but has shifted to an etched label, bottles can be reused as many as 15 times, Josh says.

The Joneses estimate that the program will help them keep about 20 to 30 percent of the average 32,000 bottles they produce each year from being tossed.

As incentive, City Scape is offering $1 off a bottle of wine to all customers who bring City Scape bottles back to the winery for recycling.

“I really hope that it just opens people’s eyes to what they’re throwing away,” Josh says. “That many of the things we use in everyday life can be reused. They don’t have to go and flood a landfill.”

It wasn’t long after the Joneses bought the 12-acre vineyard and winery 2½ years ago that Greenville County announced it would no longer recycle glass. The news was a big blow to the couple, who grew up in pro-recycling families. So they began discussing solutions.

The Joneses were inspired after  watching a documentary about waste in the U.S. They figured they could start with themselves.

“Twenty percent of what goes into landfills is one-time use products — plastic water bottles, plastic silverware, plastic bags,” Josh says, citing the film’s shocking statistics. “I was thinking about our business — what are we handing people that at the end of the day, it’s just a one-time thing?”

As it turns out, glass is easier to reuse than other materials, particularly when it contains a liquid, Josh says. The sterilization process is fairly simple and takes 3 to 4 seconds per bottle. The bottle must first be rinsed and then dried upside down overnight. Next, Jones uses a high-pressured food-grade sprayer to rinse with an FDA-grade approved sterilizing agent, and voila, the bottle is good as new.

“With all the shipping cost, all the manufacturing, all the CO2 emissions, it really turns out to be a little bit bigger of an impact,” Josh says.

Owning a winery was not part of the original plans the Joneses had for their life, at least not yet. Both wine lovers, they dreamed of opening their winery someday, but were focused on putting their masters degrees to work, Josh as an engineer and Debra as a social worker.

After moving to South Carolina a decade ago, the couple became engrossed in the nuance of wine. With few wineries to visit in the area, they began making their own, even making the wine for their wedding.

And when, in 2015, the opportunity arose to own their own winery, they hesitated only a few weeks before jumping on it. Currently, Debra oversees events and the tasting room, while Josh oversees the winemaking process. In addition, Josh’s father, mother, sister and brother-in-law have all relocated to the Upstate to help with the winery. And, Debra’s sister helps with the website and graphics from her home in Austin, Texas.

The glass recycling program is one of several changes the Joneses have made to City Scape since taking over. They have diligently been working to rebrand the winery with new labeling and logos and new products.

And where once most of the wines were made of muscadine grapes, now, the Joneses are using a variety of grapes from other areas to produce wines like a reserve cabernet sauvignon, a barrel aged malbec and a pineapple Riesling. The latter is a dry wine that is infused with a refreshing touch of pineapple juice.

City Scape wines are now carried at a number of retail and restaurant outlets from Total Wine and Fresh Market to Sidewall Pizza Co. and Smoke on the Water.

Having just turned 30, the Joneses are the youngest winery owners in the Southeast.

“We just want to get to a level where it’s blessing the community and allowing us to give joy to a lot of people, and we’re able to make a decent living off of it,” Josh says.

City Scape is currently only accepting their own bottles for recycling, but the Joneses say they’re open to growing the program if it is well received. To find out more about City Scape’s glass recycling program, visit https://cityscapewinery.com