“You may not realize it, but as an industry, we are already in a race to save the reputation of tinned wine. Many people on these calls are anticipating wine they can buy for £2 in supermarkets,” says Turner.
I apologize for the title. Anyone reading this hoping for some Robin Asquith-related smut in the 1970s will be disappointed. All I can offer is another one of those long, gushing pieces about how canned wine can save the world one episode at a time. Well, sort of.
The reason I chose this title is because for the last six months or so I've been doing my best trying to get as much customer feedback as possible on whether or not this would actually work. It's all well and good to talk about the virtues of bottled wine but if no trivial person will buy it, or if the general wine-drinking public can't get past that initial 'wine'? In a box?” mental block, and then the game is over before it even begins.
Feel Good Grapes, the company I started in late 2019 with Toby Flood (or “veteran Toby Flood” as he is now known on BT Sport), has closed down as a very small e-commerce retailer with lofty plans for all sorts of consumer events. Covid was a bit bad in terms of what it did initially to this business model, but Lockdown 3 (or whatever it is now) got a bit weird in January. The lovely team at The Three Drinkers put me in a good word through a couple of their contacts, and before I knew it, we were tapped into speed-ordering online tastings to get everyone through the toil of what we all hoped would be the best last few weeks of pandemic struggle. .
I initially thought sending three full bottles to each person during the tasting would be fine. I couldn't bear the thought of sending small glass bottles or half-bottles – which are ridiculously carbon intensive to make and almost the same to recycle, if they got that far. But it soon became clear that gamblers wanted smaller format options. Both from a price point of view and the “I don't drink much” aspect, I needed to consider an alternative. Was this the right time to unleash canned wine on punters? Would they go for it? Do they ever!
These tastings begin with a sea of curious, and sometimes indignantly unaffected, faces. What has their boss or social secretaries organized for them? Wine in a can? Budgets must be tight if this is what they are sending us! I'm not going to give you the whole nine yards on how or why this happens, but over the course of trying this wine, this good wine, that happens to be in cans, the majority become converts. It's a Covid-style manual selling tactic, and it works. What follows are a few recurring themes…
People have turned to sustainability
Whenever the word “sustainability” passes my lips, I always feel like the QI klaxon is going to take off at record speed. It's right up there with “artisan” as one of the obnoxious buzzwords of our time. This is not because it is not the most pressing issue in agriculture, but because it means 1,000 things to 1,000 different people. It's a complicated issue.
But the upside of cans is easy to interpret, and you'd have to be a stubborn bastard not to understand that a tried-and-tested packaging option – albeit with different liquids – is infinitely more recyclable with a much lower carbon footprint. The footprint (some estimates are as low as 5% compared to bottles) is a very useful addition to the world of wine.
I tend to start with that. Maybe a bit harsh, but it means that if someone wants to put wine in a trash can, they have to argue against that little detail. It is fair that some tried. What can you do?
Photography by AJ Wells/Union Wine Co.
Small shapes have their place
When I first started in the wine business, I decided to have a market stall to find out what people wanted to know. Within a short period of time, I was amazed at how many people wanted half bottles. Whether they live alone, their other half doesn't like the same wines they do, or a whole host of other reasons. The market was clearly there, so why weren't there more half bottles?
I later discovered that one of the reasons was the high marginal cost of half the bottles incurred by the product. Good cans are much cheaper from a product standpoint, and from a gambler's standpoint, they're easier to store, they cool faster, and the second half of that bottle you opened isn't calling out to you to finish in one go. My dad has now cut his drinking by more than half since finding Dolcetto from Kiss of Wine.
Quality of wine
You may not realize it, but as an industry, we're already in a race to save the reputation of canned wine. Many people on these calls are anticipating wine they can buy for £2 in supermarkets. When you hit them with a quality Napa Merlot like Larkan Red, or Canned Wine Co.'s refreshing, mineral-rich Grüner, it tends to be a lightbulb moment. The phrase “pleasantly surprised” is used a lot.
The fact that I have this level of wine to show for it is thanks to the faith and risk taken by companies like Canned Wine Company, Copper Crew, Kiss of Wine, James Hocking Wine, Nekter Wines (and more) to take the punt, pay to have it produced or imported, and then Hope to God they sell it. Thanks to them all.
Labels
Labels and artwork possibilities have been highlighted in columns and videos by wine luminaries like Joe Wadsack and Victoria Moore as an additional selling point for your favorite wine.
I'm a maths geek, so the design world isn't really my forte, but whether I'm tasting bottles or canned wines, I always ask people which labels they prefer. What will they happily pick off the shelf? The good news is that of course no one agrees with this. Even the Larkan's simple design was a favorite of a boy traveling up and down the country following his soccer team, because it was 375ml in size and dark black in color, so he could get away from it on the train without being looked down upon by his teammates.
On the other hand, I had a client, who was the only one who had tasting bottles (which I had a freelancer recommend to me), who was so upset with me that she swore I sent her two wines and two beers. That “beer” was Ferdinand Albariño. How can you point that out politely without getting a 1-star Google review?!
The same wine should be put in the can and bottle
What's next for canned wine?
Our glorious leader here at The Buyer, Peter Dean, sent me a recording of a recent online meeting conducted by the California Wine Institute (CWI). They included John from Nekter Wines, James Hocking and Richard Ellison from Wanderlust Wine. I get Ferdinand cans from John and Larcan from James, so when the topic came up I was really interested in their opinions and constructive chat about the future of the UK can market.
John noted that Ferdinand proudly puts the same wine in cans as they do in full bottles. This needs to continue. We're about to start bringing in what I think will be the first (in the UK at least, although feel free to tell me I've missed something) AOC-certified wines in cans from France later this month, with Anne-Victoire Monrozier's Fluorescent AOC and Muscadet AOC. The same wine is put into bottles. It makes the conversation natural, and it's not about it being a gimmick. It's also the only way to slowly get people to pay for the best wines. £12 for a half bottle of Napa wine is not a hard sell. £12 for a half-size bottle. It only works if the wine is 100% of the same quality.
Another conversation I have a lot on the line with gamblers is at what point do restaurants get broken into?
I'm a part owner of a restaurant and I know this can really help you get more wine by the glass or in a smaller size. But can you proudly place a can on a gambler's table as you would a bottle? It came up in the CWI chat, and once again, it was John who declared that it was about having the argument and spreading it. Of the comments I've received from customers over the months, perhaps the one I like best is to secretly pour it behind the bar, then once they've enjoyed the wine, make the big reveal at the end of the empty can and make it a “thing” that way.
We have to remember that all these conversations took place against the backdrop of the lockdown. Canned wine comes into its own for outdoor use, picnics, festivals, camping trips, and travel. Which we haven't done any of at all for over a year. Looking to the not too distant future with hope, it looks like outdoor activities will resume over the summer, and as many of them become increasingly sustainable (sorry, I said it again!) and glass-free affairs I think they will continue. Travel. I have lofty ideas about having a booth at test matches or a tent at Bestival at some point, so if anyone knows of any contacts, shout me out!
Canned wine certainly has a place in the UK wine scene, if those of us working in consumer-facing roles can be half as brave and open-minded as those who put our money and reputations on the line to can and import wine in the first place. But only if.
3 great canned wines to try
Kiss Wine “Wild” Dolcetto
One of the true successes of fledgling European canning companies, Kiss of Wine is based in Berlin and offers a range of incredibly easy-drinking wines with catchy monikers, such as Riesling “Zesty” or Chardonnay “Smooth”. But this is the Dolcetto I decided to go for. I fell in love with the wines of Piemonte, and Dolcetto is a favorite wine when we spend time there. The great thing is when you find a fruit-based wine that works great when poured into a glass or drunk straight from the can. The cherry and plum flavor of Dolcetto is just that. (Imported into the UK by Kiss of Wine. RRP £5.00 for 250ml)
Organic white wine challenge
One of the newest companies on the scene, Defy wine currently only has one wine, Trebbiano from Abruzzo. The dry white wine, certified organic from vineyard to can, is a citrusy and floral aperitif, with plenty of minerality to take you into summer salad territory. (Imported into the UK by Defy Wine. RRP £6.00 for 250ml)
Larkan Reed
Probably the best red wine in a can on the market right now. Sean Larkin's upscale Napa Valley Merlot is exactly what you'd expect. Concentrated red and black fruits, sweet spices, delicious flavors, velvety texture, long finish. Just beautiful. Price can be a sticking point, but this is Napa for you, take it or leave it! (Imported into the UK by James Hocking Wynne. RRP £12.00 for 375ml)
Mike Turner runs Feel Good Grapes, an e-commerce and online tasting company showcasing increasingly sustainable practices in the wine industry. To contact him use this address: mike@pleasebringmemywine.com
