Short shelf life, same wine: Makers greet plastic bottles
By Jerry Hirsch 2009-8-13 18:29:53
How about a bottle of the '02 Chateau Plastique?
The ubiquitous 750-milliliter glass wine bottle is starting to get competition from a plastic upstart, both on retail shelves and at a few restaurants.
The bottles carry a "use by" date — plastic doesn't provide quite the same seal as glass — and as such aren't likely to find their way into the cellars of serious wine enthusiasts.
For those who aren't as picky, however, the wine is likely to cost less. And oenophiles say that for wine that hasn't expired, the taste will be the same.
"The wine doesn't know what package it is in," said W.R. Tish, a wine educator who writes a blog called Wineskewer.
EnVino, a plastic-wine-bottle venture in Burlingame, Calif., says the containers weigh about one-eighth as much as a comparable glass bottle and take up 20 percent less space. That enables winemakers to save fuel by shipping 30 percent more wine per truck, said Patrick Field, a partner in EnVino.
New Leaf Wine Co. in Napa, Calif., is testing sales of wine packaged in plastic EnVino bottles. A small test in Northern California's Nugget supermarket chain last year "did great," said Jason Taormino, president of New Leaf.
He would like to launch it at a broader selection of retailers and is looking for "a large distributor who is willing to work with us on this."
Plastic containers already are used for the 187-milliliter single-serving wine bottles sold on commercial airlines and at many supermarkets. But cost pressures are expected to accelerate the trend.
Still, there's no guarantee of success. Trader Joe's tried selling a private-label wine from Boisset — a French Pont du Rhone — earlier this year for $5.99 for a 1-liter bottle at its California stores but discontinued it after disappointing sales.
It wasn't clear if the problem was the plastic bottle or the wine.
The ubiquitous 750-milliliter glass wine bottle is starting to get competition from a plastic upstart, both on retail shelves and at a few restaurants.
The bottles carry a "use by" date — plastic doesn't provide quite the same seal as glass — and as such aren't likely to find their way into the cellars of serious wine enthusiasts.
For those who aren't as picky, however, the wine is likely to cost less. And oenophiles say that for wine that hasn't expired, the taste will be the same.
"The wine doesn't know what package it is in," said W.R. Tish, a wine educator who writes a blog called Wineskewer.
EnVino, a plastic-wine-bottle venture in Burlingame, Calif., says the containers weigh about one-eighth as much as a comparable glass bottle and take up 20 percent less space. That enables winemakers to save fuel by shipping 30 percent more wine per truck, said Patrick Field, a partner in EnVino.
New Leaf Wine Co. in Napa, Calif., is testing sales of wine packaged in plastic EnVino bottles. A small test in Northern California's Nugget supermarket chain last year "did great," said Jason Taormino, president of New Leaf.
He would like to launch it at a broader selection of retailers and is looking for "a large distributor who is willing to work with us on this."
Plastic containers already are used for the 187-milliliter single-serving wine bottles sold on commercial airlines and at many supermarkets. But cost pressures are expected to accelerate the trend.
Still, there's no guarantee of success. Trader Joe's tried selling a private-label wine from Boisset — a French Pont du Rhone — earlier this year for $5.99 for a 1-liter bottle at its California stores but discontinued it after disappointing sales.
It wasn't clear if the problem was the plastic bottle or the wine.
From www.azstarnet.com