In an attempt to appeal to a wider range of consumers, more and more wine producers are turning to alternative packaging options: wine on tap, canned wine, tetrapaks, and even the venerable jug. We've moved beyond the cork vs screwcap debate. Does wine need to be packaged in glass to be good?
I've bemoaned the trend toward using heavier and heavier glass bottles to give consumers the sense that they're purchasing premium wine. The added weight directly increases costs without improving the quality of the wine whatsoever. And as someone who ends up schlepping full cases around, I've come to associate heavy glass with an over-inflated sense of winemaker ego. I'm excited to see producers embracing alternative packaging options that reduce shipping costs and provide convenient alternatives for consumers.
Recently, there's been a lot of buzz around canned wines. Niebaum-Coppola pioneered the idea with their 2004 release of Sofia sparkling wine in a can, but in the last couple years producers large and small have jumped on the can bandwagon. They're lightweight, durable, and compact to ship, don't require any special equipment to decant, and are ideally-suited to outdoor adventures.
But are they any good? Well...they can be.
Unfortunately, the bulk juice houses see it as a marketing play toward young consumers who don't know much about wine, but are receptive to novel packaging. As such, many canned wines are following in Niebaum-Coppola's footprints and aiming for a slightly sweet, effervescent style. Worse yet, they're counting on consumer inexperience to enable them to pass off poorly-made wine at a higher price point than their 1.5 liter bottles or box wine commands. Cans are trendy and appeal to a market that they very much want to cultivate.
I recently tried a number of canned wines available at retailers like BevMo and CostPlus and frankly was dismayed. At these price points, I didn't have grand expectations. I was looking for appealing, quaffable wines that you could toss in your day pack for a mid-hike reward, or throw in a cooler to sip on the beach. The majority had serious flaws--most commonly Ethyl or Methyl Mercaptans that gave off unpleasant sulfury aromas reminiscent of rotten cabbage, burnt tires, and matchsticks. If you could get past that, you were rewarded with oddly artificial fruitiness and strangely metallic finishes. Interestingly, those same characteristics showed up in similar wines packaged in tetrapak containers. In other words, it's not the container, it's the wine.
In fact, Field Recordings in Paso Robles is proving that there's nothing inherently wrong with canning wine--you just have to can good wine. They offer a number of different wines under their Alloy Wine Works label. So far, I've tried the Everyday Rosé, Chardonnay, and Fiction Red. They're well-made, approachable wines that are designed to appeal to a broad range of palates and play well with whatever you throw in your picnic basket.
Now that canned wine has become trendy, I'm hoping that more producers follow Field Recordings' lead and take the wine that goes into the can seriously, rather than treating it as a dumping ground for their mistakes.
I've bemoaned the trend toward using heavier and heavier glass bottles to give consumers the sense that they're purchasing premium wine. The added weight directly increases costs without improving the quality of the wine whatsoever. And as someone who ends up schlepping full cases around, I've come to associate heavy glass with an over-inflated sense of winemaker ego. I'm excited to see producers embracing alternative packaging options that reduce shipping costs and provide convenient alternatives for consumers.
Recently, there's been a lot of buzz around canned wines. Niebaum-Coppola pioneered the idea with their 2004 release of Sofia sparkling wine in a can, but in the last couple years producers large and small have jumped on the can bandwagon. They're lightweight, durable, and compact to ship, don't require any special equipment to decant, and are ideally-suited to outdoor adventures.
But are they any good? Well...they can be.
Unfortunately, the bulk juice houses see it as a marketing play toward young consumers who don't know much about wine, but are receptive to novel packaging. As such, many canned wines are following in Niebaum-Coppola's footprints and aiming for a slightly sweet, effervescent style. Worse yet, they're counting on consumer inexperience to enable them to pass off poorly-made wine at a higher price point than their 1.5 liter bottles or box wine commands. Cans are trendy and appeal to a market that they very much want to cultivate.
I recently tried a number of canned wines available at retailers like BevMo and CostPlus and frankly was dismayed. At these price points, I didn't have grand expectations. I was looking for appealing, quaffable wines that you could toss in your day pack for a mid-hike reward, or throw in a cooler to sip on the beach. The majority had serious flaws--most commonly Ethyl or Methyl Mercaptans that gave off unpleasant sulfury aromas reminiscent of rotten cabbage, burnt tires, and matchsticks. If you could get past that, you were rewarded with oddly artificial fruitiness and strangely metallic finishes. Interestingly, those same characteristics showed up in similar wines packaged in tetrapak containers. In other words, it's not the container, it's the wine.
In fact, Field Recordings in Paso Robles is proving that there's nothing inherently wrong with canning wine--you just have to can good wine. They offer a number of different wines under their Alloy Wine Works label. So far, I've tried the Everyday Rosé, Chardonnay, and Fiction Red. They're well-made, approachable wines that are designed to appeal to a broad range of palates and play well with whatever you throw in your picnic basket.
Now that canned wine has become trendy, I'm hoping that more producers follow Field Recordings' lead and take the wine that goes into the can seriously, rather than treating it as a dumping ground for their mistakes.
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