Seattlest Pix 09Nov24
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No question about it: there's too much Bordeaux on the market. The answer: find new ways to sell it. Howard Goldberg, who once wrote for the NewYork Times, thinks the answer is for Bordeaux estates to sell shrink-wrapped, powdered wine, which could be reconstituted (with designer water, to be sure) into vino. Great idea, Howard; we'll get back to you.
Seriously, it's time for international action. Justin and Andy, what's your plan?
Cut a hole in the boxNow you're talking! TetraPak (the juice-box people from Sweden) have been hired by a Cordier (a French wine merchant) to "bottle" a line of boxed Bordeaux called Tandem. Reported sales in in their test market (Belgium): 1,000 units a week. Anywhere else, that would be considered a flop, but Cordier tells Decanter (the British wine mag) that they plan to expand into Canada and France next year.
Put your straw in that box ...
It's all about the most elusive of consumers: "the young people." The French regional marketing director for wine tells the Wall Street Journal that France needs to change the image of wine. "We have ignored young people and now we are paying the price."
Says The Independent,"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."
Right, at $2.50 a pop (as it were).
A more predictable reaction from the venerable London merchant Berry Bros & Rudd, whose spokesman huffed, "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."
Certainly not. Good lord, no.
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WANT!!
This would be perfect for hiking trips, where bottles are just a pain in the ass to carry on the return trip, and liter-sized boxes lead to liter-sized high-altitude hangovers.
First, what are alcopops and where can I buy one? Second, why can't the Bordeauxians just lower the prices of their bottles and run a huge marketing campaign getting the word out that now is the time to buy quality Bordeaux? Seems like packaging isn't really the issue with wine these days.
Alcopops are things like Mike's Hard Lemonade: just like bottled beer, but taste more like pop or fruit juice, definitely on the sweet/sugary side - so you could get happily 'plastered' without having to down any of that nasty bitter hoppy/malty stuff that the older kids seem to be into. (Added bonus: the beverages were typically brightly colored - bright pink for strawberry; vibrant yellow for lemon; neon green for apple, and so on. This makes the resulting barf so much more colorful than with regular beer.)
They were *huge* in the UK and Ireland in the 90's but the companies that made them cut back sharply after media outrage about them being marketed to underage teens. They're still available today, but now marketed more upscale.
Those mini-wine-boxes like these do look ideal for packing (lunches, camping, etc) - but really, what self-respecting wine fan (even if not a snob) would drink from a straw? You don't get to swirl it, check out the color, or more importantly, actually smell it. And it probably doesn't open up much what with minimal air exposure.
--musely
if it's powered - what happens to the alchohol?
do you have to add water + 6oz vodka?