First there came wine in cartons, then plastic bottles and now wine through a straw.
Tandem wine, packaged in shiny recyclable Tetra Pak cartons, is being tested in Belgian supermarkets by Bordeaux négociant Cordier Mestrezat.
Tetra Pak already makes a carton for Burgundy-based producer Boisset, whose French Rabbit range of Cabernet Sauvignon and other red blends, in jaunty coloured containers, was launched in 2005.
This latest version of the ubiquitous container is in an easy-drinking format. The red, white and rosé wines, priced at €1.25, come with a special straw with four holes around a sealed top that send individual streams of wine onto the tongue, recreating the sensation of drinking from a glass.
The company reports sales of 1,000 units a week in Belgium, and plans to launch Tandem in France and Canada early next year.
Cordier – whose top wine is Château Lafite 2000 at €1500 a bottle – is the first high-end wine producer to put Bordeaux in a box.
Marketing director Vincent Bonhur knows that convincing the French on the merits of Bordeaux-to-go will be no easy task: 'In France, the wine market is still very traditional', he says.
News of the developments was greeted with a mixed reception. Venerable London merchant Berry Bros & Rudd was unimpressed. 'I don't think it is a hugely good idea. It brings wine to the level of fruit juices and you don't want to bring young people into wine in that way,' a spokesman said.
Anthony Rose, wine correspondent for UK newspaper the Independent, was more enthusiastic. 'The wine trade needs to encourage young people to come into wine and trade up. So long as it's quality wine, selling it in a carton with a straw is one way to encourage newcomers, who may otherwise just drink alcopops, to try wine instead.'
The shift towards more exotic packaging has supporters even among top Bordeaux properties. 'Normally I'm a traditionalist', said Michel Raymond, cellar master at Bordeaux Château Lagrange. 'But if it works, why not?'
Have your say... To post your comment on this story, email us at news@decanter.com, making sure the relevant headline is in the subject field
Bordeaux shouldn't stop at wine-through-a-straw. What consumers need, especially for picnics, is freeze-dried reds and whites.
If Baron Eric de Rothschild wants to stay ahead of the game, he should reduce Lafite to powder, shrink-wrap it and send it to supermarkets.
To resurrect the wine, bring the powder home, put it in a glass and add water. Not just any water, mind you, but luxury water; if you used tap water, the Lafite would no longer be a class act.
You could splash Pellegrino into the Lafite, thereby producing sparkling Pauillac.
Better yet, add a dash of soda to powdered Château Carbonnieux,
and - voila - you have Château Carbonation.
Perhaps I'll peddle this idea to finicky Smith-Haut-Lafitte. All of its discarded grapes could be transformed into a Smith-Bas-Lafitte. Howard G Goldberg, New York City
I trust that everyone is aware that this form of long-life packaging is a laminate of paper, aluminium foil and polythene (plastic). All such packaging, whether used for long-life milk or fruit juices or wine will result in contamination of the product by aluminium. Before you buy this product ask the manufacturers to provide you with independent or in-house peer-reviewed science demonstrating that wine stored in the packaging will not be contaminated by aluminium. Chris Exley, Keele University, c.exley@chem.keele.ac.uk
Australian wine company Cheviot Bridge has also had significant market success with wine in one litre Tetrapaks. John Kennedy, Victoria, Australia
Kids have so much more than they used to. Gone are the days when a sandwich and an apple were sufficient to keep the primary school kid placated at recess.
Toby Bensimon
YES!!! I LOVE THE ENTIRE IDEA. It's about time the wine industry “got off its high horse”; lost it's S squared (snootiness & snobiness) and associated with the rest of the world. For five years or more here in the U.S.A. I have been trying to get the wine industry interested in tapping into the huge potential revenue pool comprised of the unknowledgeable and uninitiated Midwestern agricultural, country western, rodeo and bull riding population, but they haven't been interested. I am convinced that “wine snobbery” is the one and only thing that has caused this “huge potential wine revenue source” to remain virtually untouched; except by beer!
Ed Zeigler, Kansas, USA
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Lucy Shaw
Bordeaux shouldn't stop at wine-through-a-straw. What consumers need, especially for picnics, is freeze-dried reds and whites.
