Brands on a Mission: Sea Change Wine

For this month’s Brands on a Mission feature, we speak with Simon Rolfe, one of the co-founders and Directors at Sea Change Wine – a company dedicated to helping to protect our oceans and great tasting wine. With every bottle of Sea Change sold, the company makes a donation to its marine charity partners, and over the past three years has raised over €150k. All Sea Change wines also have minimal packaging and are plastic-free – a standard all wineries should be aiming towards. We hear more about the company and the amazing work they do below.

What was the idea about Sea Change Wine born out of?

Behind Sea Change is 10 International – a family-owned wine company which strongly believes that businesses have a responsibility to the environment. We came up with the idea for Sea Change after discussing the issue of single-use plastic with a Canadian customer at a global wine fair. What started as a casual discussion about the rubbish being washed up on the shores of British Columbia became the start of a new brand, with a mission to turn the tide on plastic pollution in our seas and oceans. I also felt a particular affinity for the coast, having spent some time living in Queensland, Australia, and seeing the problem for myself. So, it was decided that it was time to take action and in 2018, the concept of Sea Change came to light. We are proud that Sea Change is now sold in 15 countries around the world and expect this number to continue to rise. Furthermore, Sea Change is the only wine brand we’ve ever owned that generates reverse enquiries on a daily basis, whether they be from major drinks distributors, international hotel chains, famous aquariums or couples asking for Sea Change to be served on their special day.

How are your wines revolutionising the market?

To sustain our environment for future generations, we all need to consider our current consumption choices. We can sometimes find it hard to change habits that have been formed over many years, however, if everyone can make incremental changes, as a collective we can have a significant and lasting positive impact.

In terms of Sea Change, we remove the unnecessary plastic cork wrap from our bottles, use renewable, natural closures, and the paper for our labels comes from certified sustainable forests and is made partially from grape waste. This, combined with the donation to marine charities on every bottle sold, delivers a notable environmental benefit, whilst making us stand out. We regularly hear from our customers that whilst primarily they buy Sea Change because they love our wines, they also appreciate the fact that we’ve stripped back the packaging to minimise waste and that they enjoy feeling part of a Sea Change community that gives back to society and the environment.

How do you source your wines?

Since forming our wine business back in 2006, we’ve been lucky to work with a wide range of fantastic producer partners from all around the world. This broad contact base has allowed us to seek out and work with excellent family producers that share Sea Change’s core brand values both in terms of wine quality and environmental ethics. It’s fair to say, however, that finding the right producer for certain wines is sometimes harder than you’d expect. We’ve been searching for the right partner to produce our planned Sea Change premium red for over 12 months now and still haven’t quite found the right option. The challenge we are facing relates to the fact that stylistically the wine we are after needs to be a concentrated, rich, structured red which in most scenarios will require some time in bottle to mature prior to release – unfortunately, these bottles are often broad-shouldered, heavyweight options which conflict with our environmental packaging policy. But don’t worry, we’ll get there in the end!

Tell us more about the organisations you support?

Since we launched Sea Change our original list of two UK based charity partners has grown to 11 located all over the world. These fantastic organisations include our global partner Ocean Generation along with regional partners that benefit from sales within a given territory for example Sea-Changers (UK), The Olive Ridley Project (Indian Ocean) and Clean Coasts (Ireland). With each bottle of Sea Change wine sold, we donate a portion of the profit to support many of their projects: from driving environmental awareness within governments and industry to setting up sanctuaries and small local beach cleans. Our short-term goal is to raise over €500,000 by the end of 2022 and then to press on from there.

You’ve recently launched your organic wines – tell us a little bit about them.

We have two Organic wines currently available. The Organic Red – Sea Change Bobal (£13.99 RRP www.seachangewine.com) balances intensity with vibrant flavours of red and black fruit such as cherry, raspberry and blackcurrant, and is perfect paired with Iberian specialities such as paella and chorizo, or chargrilled vegetables. The Organic White – Sea Change Chardonnay (£13.99 RRP www.seachangewine.com) originates from the Valencia region of Spain, bringing a balanced combination of aromas and taste to create a light, yet fruity, wine that is beautiful when paired with creamy pasta dishes and seafood.

Our Organic wines use organic grapes that grow in healthy soil, therefore producing heartier skins and high concentrations of those good-for-you antioxidants, including polyphenols and resveratrol that bring vibrancy to every drop. What’s more, the production process means only naturally occurring sulphites are present.

What does true sustainability mean to you?

To me, true sustainability is about offering consumers products that allow environmentally conscious, sustainable choices to be made without compromising on quality or choice. Whilst we don’t expect to be able to convince everybody to instantly make plastic-free choices, we do believe the vast majority of consumers care, and if we all take collective responsibility to make positive incremental changes to our everyday lives we can create a significant long-lasting impact. And if that journey includes enjoying a fantastic glass of Sea Change wine along the way, we think it’s all the better for it.