CANNED WINE
CAN YOU DIG IT?
AUSTRALIA INVENTED THE HILLS HOIST, CREATED THE WINE CASK AND CHAMPIONED SCREWCAPS – IS CANNED WINE NEXT? ANDREW GRAHAM EXPLORES THE GROWING TREND.
W
hile it was once considered just a passing fad, wine in a can is now the fastest growing segment in the US wine industry, up by 43 per cent in the year to June 2018 (BWW 166). That growth has also been seen in the UK, where canned wine is up by more than 30 per cent. Importantly, while the canned wine segment is still tiny – just 0.2 per cent of total wine sales in the US (Nielsen data) – the growth is most obviously seen in millennial drinkers, a part of the market often ignored or more actively targeted with RTDs and cider. Regardless of the international success, canned wine locally is still seen as a novelty – a product segment that is yet to have an audience. Still, with producers both big and small investing in the format, and can technology expanding rapidly, the question is not whether cans will be ‘a thing’ but who will be first to capitalise on their success.
TREASURY TURNS TO TINS Of the larger wine producers dabbling in the segment, it is Treasury Wine Estates (TWE) with one of the most significant investments. In September, TWE released six different wines in cans, across the A’tivo, Squealing Pig and T’Gallant brands. Notably, all of them are either sparkling or spritzed. As Kylie Farquhar explained at the 2018 ILG Conference in Bangkok, this release has been led by international experience – particularly the UK market, where Prosecco cans are proving very popular.
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“All of the cans that we’re launching into the market right now are spritzed,” she said “They’re all 250ml serves, they’re all eight per cent alcohol and they’re all wine, so they’re not an RTD. They are 100 per cent wine-based and something very new to the market.” Beyond the convenient packaging, the appeal of cans is that consumers associate them with outdoor dining and, most importantly, refreshment. The giant TWE Usage and Attitudes Study suggested that while ‘refreshment’ drives 30 per cent of drink choices, wine only makes up one in 10 of those decisions. In other words, even a small move towards wine as a ‘refreshment choice’ can increase sales, particularly across the all-important millennials age group. Farquhar also set out how TWE will be backing the push. “We are going to put a campaign together over summer which is all about opening up that afternoon refreshment session and giving people an opportunity to potentially move away from the dominance of beer and into canned wine as an alternative.”
THE BATTLE OF CANS While TWE envisage considerable growth for canned wine, they face one challenge that might stymie that growth – the can technology itself. Canned wine is not really a new idea, with the concept seen way back in the 60s when Sydney wine merchant Doug Lamb imported cans of Beaujolais (and the 30s before that). Yet
the nature of wine itself meant that these early cans typically had a short shelf life, plagued by problems with stability and corrosion. In 2001, Australian inventors Greg Stokes and Steve Barics instead patented a canned wine solution known as Vinsafe that instead would allow for wine to be stored safely for longer periods in aluminium can. Their company, Barokes, famously protects this patent vigorously and has pursued anyone who has produced wine in cans regardless of whether it uses the Vinsafe parameters. TWE, however, is one of many Australian winemakers that is unhappy about the broadness of the patent and has taken Barokes to the Federal Court to have the patent put aside. Conversely, Barokes claims that this is just a tactic employed by TWE as they “don’t want to pay the royalty fee”, noting that negotiations went on for five years until TWE launched the A’tivo brand without an agreement in place. Barokes, however, is on a less-than-stable footing itself, with the Japanese partners in the business Daiwa ordering it to be wound up in proceedings in the Supreme Court of Victoria.
MAKING CANNED WINE COOL While Barokes and TWE battle it out in court over canned wine intellectual property, there are a squad of producers who are using Vinsafe can technology and winning over drinkers. Riot Wine Co. is one business that is no stranger to alternative methods of wine
