A prominent Sauternes producer has started bottling its wines in a 100ml serve test-tube shaped bottle aimed at young drinkers in nightclubs.
Grand Cru Classé property Château d'Arche will launch its second wine, La Perle d'Arche, in the radical packaging in nightclubs in Bordeaux and Singapore in September.
Managing director Jérôme Cosson told decanter.com: 'Lots of young people don't know what Sauternes is or think it's too expensive but when they try it they think it's very drinkable.
'We want to work with nightclubs to give customers the choice between vodka for the man and Sauternes for the lady. The idea is to put lots of them in a big ice bucket on the bar.'
The 100ml container sealed under screwcap can also be carried in hand luggage on flights and Cosson intends to create a five vintage box-set for tourists.
The 2005 vintage will be the first released under the new packaging.
The product is primarily aimed at the Australian and Far Eastern markets but Cosson is also looking for UK and US importers.
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This sounds like a very sensible idea but reminds me of the similar situation when Selfridges, I think, offered small glasses of fine wines to allow interested people to taste them and were then promptly banned from doing so by some weights and measures thought police because the glasses they were using were not of a size approved by Brussels. In other words the small glasses being offered were deemed too small when the tasters should have been quaffing these fine drinks down by the gallon.
I fear that something similar could befall the Sauternes experiment if it is tried in the UK although if they are used in Bordeaux this may not be so much of a problem, and I doubt whether Singapore has any of the kill-joys elements that we have in the UK...
Let us hope that innovation is allowed to succeed for once. Let us not forget that the world was once flat according to the powers that were..!
Peter Bowyer, UK
I think that this is indeed an interesting idea to introduce
Sauternes to an untapped market segment.
However, I'd like to point out that the nightclub supply
business is quite cutthroat (especially here in Singapore)
in terms of buying costs versus selling price, and it would
be extremely difficult to imagine pricing something like
this at the same point as straight spirits or even premium
cocktails.
And even if this new initiative proves to be successful, it
could possibly lead to dozens of copycat products based on
other sweet wines from the various other wine producing
regions/countries that are not only cheaper to produce, are
available in much larger quantities than the limited amount
that can be produced by Chateau d'Arche, and most
importantly, are consistently available year after year, at
a price that Chateau d'Arche and other Sauternes producers
will be hard pressed to meet...
Chateau d'Arche may be the ones who will try to open the
market, but once opened, they will lose it to whoever is
able to supply the goods consistently at a price that they
(Chateau d'Arche) probably won't be able to meet.
Daniel Chia, Singapore
That's a great idea. Much better than all those disgusting bottle
fruit drinks they sell that look carcinogenic!!
They should sell chilled Sauternes with a small bowl of ice cold
strawberries!
I'd buy it!
Nick Breeze, UK
That's great news. Sauternes really needs to be innovative, if they want to improve sales.
Already bottling more in smaller bottles would help. I hope this will be a success.
Claudia Jenni Magnus, Switzerland
How terrible!!! And a state-owned chateau!
Nils Stormby, Malmo, Sweden
"We want to work with nightclubs to give customers the choice between vodka for the man and Sauternes for the lady."
Patronising, sexist and out of touch
Peter Thomas, London
I think this is an awful idea, I see it as a making a well crafted wine in to a cheap looking gimmick!! Please re think I realise the recession has hit but there is no need to go to these levels, is there? and the comment about men and women??? Might be a good time to look at the marketing team.
Kelli Gould, Bristol, UK
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