Kermit Lynch leapfrogs screw-caps for Box Wine...

[ToddFrench]

@Bob Wood

@Todd F r e n c h

@Milos Cam-Robb

I’m all for it…I love the box technology, but lament the wines that I can find packaged like that…but if I could find something I like from S. France or Spain (or wherever, really. I just figure it would be from there) and have 5L on the ready, I’d be all over it…there are so many times when I want one or two glasses (or one more ), but instead of pulling a cork, I usually pass it up

That would be awesome - a nice Rhone in a 5L box at the ready!

Dom. Edmund Burle produces a Vin du Pays in a 5-liter box. I’ve successfully kept it at room temperature for over 4 months and it was fresh as a daisy - so to speak. Sells for $35, give or take.

That sounds quite interesting, actually…

[Bob_Wood]

@Todd F r e n c h

@Bob Wood

Dom. Edmund Burle produces a Vin du Pays in a 5-liter box. I’ve successfully kept it at room temperature for over 4 months and it was fresh as a daisy - so to speak. Sells for $35, give or take.

That sounds quite interesting, actually…

It’s perfect for every day drinking and for cooking.

[Milos_Cam-Robb]

@Claude Kolm

@Milos Cam-Robb

when I was ITB, we packaged wines in a box…from my experience, up to six months or more and the wine was fine…the technology is very strong, but the public perception is that anything packaged as bag-in-a-box is crap…like screwcaps, it’s all about changing public perception…and to do this, you need decent to good wines packaged this way

If that’s the case, I should think that an industry leader such as Kermit Lynch could have a tremendous impact on public perception. That, in turn, could have an enormous impact on the cost of lower-priced imports. Right now, we pay a lot for packaging and shipment of those wines, and wine-in-a-box would reduce those prices greatly.

+1 on the bold…and its another reason I’m so for it…if you could make these already strong QPR wines even more of a value, it would be great…and as an added benefit, it has got to be more environmentally sound!!!

[Milos_Cam-Robb]

@Wes Barton

@Otto Dobre

This would be FANTASTIC! Would be the equivalent of having your own by the glass machine at home.

I’d like to have a product to do this from a bottled wine, too. Imagine, instead of having to mess with the various imperfect preservation systems, you could just transfer a wine into the thing and have it on tap, as fresh as when you opened the bottle!

Something like that, a high-end product, would help the perception of the technology a great deal.

Something real high-end might pump the wine out of the bottle, while displacing it with inert gas, and avoiding sucking up sediment. Then you could open something old and have it on demand, without degredation.

something like this?

http://www.wineenthusiast.com/winekeeper-napa-4-bottle-wine-preservation-system.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

if it is, then $1500 gets you what you want

[Otto_Dobre]

@Milos Cam-Robb

@Wes Barton

@Otto Dobre

This would be FANTASTIC! Would be the equivalent of having your own by the glass machine at home.

I’d like to have a product to do this from a bottled wine, too. Imagine, instead of having to mess with the various imperfect preservation systems, you could just transfer a wine into the thing and have it on tap, as fresh as when you opened the bottle!

Something like that, a high-end product, would help the perception of the technology a great deal.

Something real high-end might pump the wine out of the bottle, while displacing it with inert gas, and avoiding sucking up sediment. Then you could open something old and have it on demand, without degredation.

something like this?

http://www.wineenthusiast.com/winekeeper-napa-4-bottle-wine-preservation-system.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

if it is, then $1500 gets you what you want

Milos, that was what I was talking about, this cheap technology would render the other one useless and more. The expensive setup will not hold a wine fresh for more than a week from what I know. Here we are talking about months. That is why very large format would make perfect sense.

Now from what I can tell, and Wes please correct me if I’m wrong, he takes the idea a step further and looks at the ability to “suck” out the wine out of an older vintage bottle and storing the wine in this container which will alow you to enjoy a bottle of 1982 Lafite over several weeks, one glass at a time, with no loss in quality.

Now his model is more futuristic, but it sounds like a very worthy idea well worth pursuing.

[Claude_Kolm]

Tyler Cowan (Dr. Vino) has a column in Forbes about wine-in-a-box (Box Wines That Can Be A Hit) and some recommendations (In Depth: Box Wines That Can Be A Hit)

[Matt_Reid]

I was super-excited by the proposition, and said so on the Kermit Lynch blog. Since then, I’ve had second thoughts. I’m all for B-in-B, but…

• I have not yet been interested enough to try the Corsican white that KL proposes to sell this way, even though it is $17/bottle and raved about by the KL staff seemingly every month, so am I sure I want 5-2/3 bottles worth sitting in my fridge, that I would have to drink within a few months?
• no pricing info is available yet, other than that it will cost less than the regular bottle price. If it comes out to $12/bottle equivalent, that will be $80 for the box. Again, I might hesitate to make the commitment on an unknown quantity.

That said, if they were to put Kermit’s Cotes-du-Rhone selection in a 5L box, I’d be all over it.

[Claude_Kolm]

@Matt Reid

• no pricing info is available yet, other than that it will cost less than the regular bottle price. If it comes out to $12/bottle equivalent, that will be $80 for the box. Again, I might hesitate to make the commitment on an unknown quantity.

The way I read what is written on the blog, that’s less than $17 for a five liter box, or the equivalent of about $3/bottle.

[Wes_Barton]

@Milos Cam-Robb

something like this?

http://www.wineenthusiast.com/winekeeper-napa-4-bottle-wine-preservation-system.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

if it is, then $1500 gets you what you want

The size and price limit the market for that. Plus, storing under inert gas seems to be imperfect. (ie. noticeable change at one week vs. no perceivable change at 4 months.)

The pump I’m thinking of wouldn’t be bigger than a wine bottle. And it would be optional. You’d want one for older wines or extended keeping. Maybe $200.

The bags would be easy to fill manually. Just unscrew the tap and pour. Burp out any air. Should be under $20 for the most basic version. 6x6x8 inches (or equivalent) for a 750ml maximum capacity version. Easy to stick in the fridge.

[C_Zeitler]

German winemaker Dirk Würtz in a video explaining his Bag in Box (BiB):
Video 2 – Bag in Box | Würtz-Wein" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ahemm, you need of course some knowledge in German to understand it…

I drink al my Rosé from BiB´s - just the perfect format, and I don´t have to
carry 10 glass bottles to the recycling container each week.

Cheers
Christian

[AlexHay]

I love the idea. Count me in as a fan of the concept. Best of luck on what I believe will be an uphill battle (and then some).

[Matt_Reid]

@Claude Kolm

@Matt Reid

• no pricing info is available yet, other than that it will cost less than the regular bottle price. If it comes out to $12/bottle equivalent, that will be $80 for the box. Again, I might hesitate to make the commitment on an unknown quantity.

The way I read what is written on the blog, that’s less than $17 for a five liter box, or the equivalent of about $3/bottle.

I hope you are correct. If you are, I’ll go in for a dozen!

[Sean_Connor]

The $17/5l sounds in line - a couple of years ago when I was in southern France, the box wines of local southern French VdP or table wines were less than that even. I’ve seen a red Rhone in Boston in a 3L box, but it was over $30 which I thought was on the high side, and the taste was decent but nothing special.

[Veronica_Castro]

Hope that catches on. We have the 1L tetra packs of the Bandithttp://tinyurl.com/l9t6ow, it’s actually alright, not too much movement on them as of yet. We used to carry the tetra-pak that looked like a kid’s juice box, which people really liked. …very portable.

Another off-topic: Because of that blog, we get people are coming into the store looking for E Prove, saying they want Kermit’s “house wine.”

[ChrisBeacham]

I picked up a 3 ltr box of CdR for $20 this weekend. Nothing great but it was nice last night to have access to a cup of wine for making a sauce without having to pop a bottle.

[Howard_Cooper]

@ChrisBeacham

I picked up a 3 ltr box of CdR for $20 this weekend. Nothing great but it was nice last night to have access to a cup of wine for making a sauce without having to pop a bottle.

That was a thought I had – that these things would be great for cooking.

[nedhoey]

The public will follow leaders when it comes to packaging. Those with the power to put top near term wines in boxes can change perceptions, especially with the green marketing angles available. They have to decide to take certain wines out of bottles despite marketing concerns. Tempier Rosé in boxes for example.