France: Wine in Boxes - Sacrilege for High-End Bordeaux Producer Cordier?
Sep 6th, 2007, 08:32 AM
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France: Wine in Boxes - Sacrilege for High-End Bordeaux Producer Cordier?
Wine in a box - long stable in U.S. where for as little as $9.99 or even $8.99 you can often buy five liters inside a plastic bag inside a box that comes with a spout.
But these wines are universally panned as being cheapos swill (which IME they are not always)
But a prestigious Bordeaux wine producer, Cordier, whose top-end wines can fetch up to $3,000 a bottle (!) daring to put some of its product in a box!
Sacrilege! Recently Cordier did indeed put wine in a box - wine it has dubbed Tandem, in 8.5 oz cartons that come with a straw with 4 wholes designed to spray wine around the mouth.
Why just a departure from tradition?
To better compete they say with popular Australian, Chilean, etc. wines that are biting into French wine sales and as young French turn more and more to spirits and, incroyable, beer!
So Cordier is attacking this trend by 'trying to offer a premium wine that will attract the younger generation. It's a product that can sell in stadiums, hotels and on airlines' Cordiers Head of Marketing spouts.
To be rolled out in 2008 Tandem will first be tested in 600 Beglian supermarkets at about $2.50/carton. (If it can woo Belgians from beer it can woo anyone!)
And Cordier thinks that though boxed wine may be 'too radical for the French - in France the wine market is still very traditional, but in markets like Canada, the U.K. and Northern Europe this new format should be a hit'.
So though it looks like it may take awhile to hit hypermarche shelves in France itself - in northern Europe it may be a nice addition to travelers picnics - Bordeaux that squirts into your mouth!
As the French wine industry is in a bit of doldrums, especially Boredeaux it seems, in spite of the heady 2006 vintage (or was it 2005 the best year in a century?) French, still Europe's leading wine makers with production of about 1.45 billions gallons a year, is also the leader in consumption according to EU stats.
But between 1995 and 2005 annual wine consumption of French wine fell from an average of 16 gallons per head a year to 14.5 gal/head - says Viniflihor, the French national agricultural trade organization.
Vinmiflhor also says that % of French pop over 13 yrs old who regularly consume wine has fallen from 50% in 1980 to 20% in 2005
There are some such box wines on sale in French stores now. Toto Vino mades a nonalcholic red wine-based soda drink as does Societe Icone - sold in Monoprix supermarkets.
So Bordeaux - red, white or rose varieties in a box - a shiny red, green and pink box made by Swiss packaging firm Tetra Pak SA, will it attract you?
I'm thinking could be just the thing for a train ride!
But these wines are universally panned as being cheapos swill (which IME they are not always)
But a prestigious Bordeaux wine producer, Cordier, whose top-end wines can fetch up to $3,000 a bottle (!) daring to put some of its product in a box!
Sacrilege! Recently Cordier did indeed put wine in a box - wine it has dubbed Tandem, in 8.5 oz cartons that come with a straw with 4 wholes designed to spray wine around the mouth.
Why just a departure from tradition?
To better compete they say with popular Australian, Chilean, etc. wines that are biting into French wine sales and as young French turn more and more to spirits and, incroyable, beer!
So Cordier is attacking this trend by 'trying to offer a premium wine that will attract the younger generation. It's a product that can sell in stadiums, hotels and on airlines' Cordiers Head of Marketing spouts.
To be rolled out in 2008 Tandem will first be tested in 600 Beglian supermarkets at about $2.50/carton. (If it can woo Belgians from beer it can woo anyone!)
And Cordier thinks that though boxed wine may be 'too radical for the French - in France the wine market is still very traditional, but in markets like Canada, the U.K. and Northern Europe this new format should be a hit'.
So though it looks like it may take awhile to hit hypermarche shelves in France itself - in northern Europe it may be a nice addition to travelers picnics - Bordeaux that squirts into your mouth!
As the French wine industry is in a bit of doldrums, especially Boredeaux it seems, in spite of the heady 2006 vintage (or was it 2005 the best year in a century?) French, still Europe's leading wine makers with production of about 1.45 billions gallons a year, is also the leader in consumption according to EU stats.
But between 1995 and 2005 annual wine consumption of French wine fell from an average of 16 gallons per head a year to 14.5 gal/head - says Viniflihor, the French national agricultural trade organization.
Vinmiflhor also says that % of French pop over 13 yrs old who regularly consume wine has fallen from 50% in 1980 to 20% in 2005
There are some such box wines on sale in French stores now. Toto Vino mades a nonalcholic red wine-based soda drink as does Societe Icone - sold in Monoprix supermarkets.
So Bordeaux - red, white or rose varieties in a box - a shiny red, green and pink box made by Swiss packaging firm Tetra Pak SA, will it attract you?
I'm thinking could be just the thing for a train ride!
Sep 6th, 2007, 08:50 AM
#2
Every French super or hypermarket has a wine-in-a-box section, in all price ranges. In the really big places, like Carrefour at the Eurotunnel or Auchan near Disneyland, you can even get 10-liter boxes.
This is what cafés and restaurants serve their carafe wine out of in most cases.
This is what cafés and restaurants serve their carafe wine out of in most cases.
Sep 6th, 2007, 08:55 AM
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I guess they don't appeal to younger folk like this new mini-carton may and that's the hope - instead of grabbing a beer to go, get some Tandem - i expect a huge marketing effort will be necessarily.
Jack - what is the perceived quality of the big box wines? I've never seen one in a house - though my in-laws are at most occasional glass of wine folk who may buy a bottle a week or less
Jack - what is the perceived quality of the big box wines? I've never seen one in a house - though my in-laws are at most occasional glass of wine folk who may buy a bottle a week or less
Sep 6th, 2007, 09:04 AM
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To some folk who imagine at least the taste of plastic linings, which also may be involved in the increase of prostrate cancer some researchers think - the plastic lining many tinned foods, wine bags, etc.
To me it's what's inside - and usually in plastic is some generic stuff IME
To me it's what's inside - and usually in plastic is some generic stuff IME
Sep 6th, 2007, 09:39 AM
#6
The bags are not always plastic -- sometimes they are foil, if that makes any difference. Anyway, with billions of people drinking water out of plastic bottles, I really don't see the danger of using it for wine. One of my best friends, with whom I have traveled to Cambodia, Hong Kong and Indonesia on various trips, has warned me of the danger of continuing to use my sentimental plastic Vietnamese water bottle for keeping cold tap water in my refrigerator. She warns me of this while smoking a cigarette.
Anyway, to get back to the subject, no, there is no problem using box wines at home. Either you hide them from your acquaintances by putting the wine in a fancy carafe, or you have already convinced your real friends of the quality, and you all revel together regarding the savings and the fact that you can drink more wine than if you were paying for bottles. Also you kind of lose track of the quantity when you are not uncorking another 70 cl bottle. I discovered these wines when I was a minority partner in a café and learned that what was inside the elegant wooden barrel containing the Beaujolais Nouveau and the Côtes du Rhône Nouveau was actually a plastic bag of wine.
Anyway, to get back to the subject, no, there is no problem using box wines at home. Either you hide them from your acquaintances by putting the wine in a fancy carafe, or you have already convinced your real friends of the quality, and you all revel together regarding the savings and the fact that you can drink more wine than if you were paying for bottles. Also you kind of lose track of the quantity when you are not uncorking another 70 cl bottle. I discovered these wines when I was a minority partner in a café and learned that what was inside the elegant wooden barrel containing the Beaujolais Nouveau and the Côtes du Rhône Nouveau was actually a plastic bag of wine.
