To keg or to not keg, that’s the query preoccupying quite a lot of winemakers lately. Regardless of gaining momentum within the informal wine bar and restaurant scene, it’s a supply system that also makes some winemakers and venues — to not point out sure wine drinkers — slightly uneasy.
Whereas draft beer gross sales have been sluggishly sagging even after the post-pandemic reset — to not point out the questions swirling across the security of non-alcoholic beer on faucet — kegged wine and cocktails are having a second. Pre-batched cocktails have been seizing each market territory and faucets from brewers. And main wine keg disruptors like Free Move are claiming robust development, with 2023 keg shipments supposedly up greater than 25 p.c yr over yr for the corporate regardless of an general worrisome local weather for the wine business as a complete.
However regardless of the expansion, packaging traditionalists, snobby oenophiles, and hesitant winemakers proceed to pump the brakes on kegged wine’s surge into what ought to theoretically be a big slice of the on-premise market. What’s behind this reticence, and the way respectable are the issues?
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The Sure, Sure, and Sure of Keg Wine
The keg idea, at the least on paper, needs to be a no brainer and win-win throughout.
“The sustainability side is large,” says Jeff Carcara. “We’re conserving glass out of landfills and lowering the demand for brand new glass manufacturing.” Because the CEO of Sixty Vines, a Dallas-based, multi-city upscale informal restaurant and wine bar idea that gives 60 wines on faucet in every location, he admittedly has greater than slightly motivation to be a cheerleader for wine in kegs. However he sees a number of compelling the explanation why extra packages ought to get on board with the concept, and never only for their backside line.
Kegged wine is much extra ecologically sound than clanking by means of hundreds of carbon-intensive glass bottles for BTG packages. “We’re additionally slicing down on waste from corks, labels, and foils,” Carcara says. It’s additionally a godsend for program administrators and barkeeps. Anybody who has suffered by means of a lunch, comfortable hour, or dinner rush on the ground or behind the rail has picked up greater than a splash of PTSD from panicked restock runs to the cellar or a damaged bottle within the ice nicely. Kegs cut back the prevalence of those aptly named bottlenecks.
After which there’s the monetary win for each vineyard and venue: margin. “Kegging cuts out prices like glass, corks, labels, foils, packaging, and bottling logistics,” Carcara says. “The one value is for the kegging itself, which may actually enhance a vineyard’s revenue if managed nicely.”
For restaurant and bar wine packages in any other case beset by waste from open-bottle oxidation, breakage, and good old style cork taint? Get rid of that — and mix with the commonly decrease value per liter of kegged wine — and the financial savings add up over time, reasonably shortly offsetting the expense of faucet system set up.
Kinks within the Faucet Line
At a primary degree, kegs are provided in two codecs: one-way and returnable.
One-way kegs, normally comprised of PET (polyethylene terephthalate, a sort of recyclable plastic), are crammed on the vineyard, shipped through customary distribution channels, then discarded through recycling. They provide simplified logistics and take advantage of sense for small manufacturing tons.
As for kegs of the returnable type, they’re usually manufactured from chrome steel and have a repeatable, closed-loop life cycle dealt with by a contracted kegging operator like Free Move. Such corporations fill kegs, ship them to prospects, choose them up from prospects, clear, and repeat. They have an inclination to work finest with considerably larger-scale manufacturing tons and well-established distribution routes to common, repeat prospects.
“It’s vital to accomplice with a wine keg vendor that has a powerful sufficient buyer base. [That] ensures fast turnover each within the keg and remaining bulk wine stock ready to be kegged.”
“We began promoting wine in kegs in 2009,” says Santa Barbara winemaker Greg Brewer, founding father of Brewer-Clifton and Diatom. It’s labored nicely for his well-liked Diatom Chardonnay label, although it’s the one kegged cuvée he’s targeted on for now. He was gained over by “producing and distributing on a considerably bigger scale with improved logistics,” however admits there’s problem managing the closed-loop distribution technique in terms of limited-production wine. “There are challenges with keg gross sales on a small scale with regard to supply and retrieval,” he says, “The one-way recyclable type is nice, although the [PET] materials has a considerably restricted shelf life.”
John Olney, head winemaker for California’s famed Ridge Vineyards, is a newer convert to the keg membership. Regardless of some prior reluctance, he was impressed with the top end result. “Publicity to air and headspace was my greatest concern,” he says. “However in March 2023, I attempted the Ridge 2021 ‘Three Valleys’ from a freshly tapped keg. It tasted similar to our bottled model.”
Ridge, too, is targeted on a single kegged providing, and Olney’s reasoning echoes that of Brewer. “That is our entry degree Zinfandel meant for early consumption, so kegging made sense,” he says. As certainly one of Ridge’s largest-production cuvées, the maths of scale and resupply work out. However don’t count on to see Monte Bello on faucet at your native wine bar anytime quickly.
Moreover, the particular kegging collaborator of alternative reveals one other potential disadvantage. Like Brewer, Olney additionally tapped Free Move for his kegs because of the firm’s comparatively broad attain and sturdy logistics. However smaller closed-loop keg operations — whereas in any other case doubtlessly doing advantageous work — might probably throw an unintentional wrench within the gears. Wine kegs are designed to maintain wine recent for as much as 12 months unopened and three months after tapping. However past that yr, the cube start to roll. “It’s vital to accomplice with a wine keg vendor that has a powerful sufficient buyer base,” Olney says. “[That] ensures fast turnover each within the keg and remaining bulk-wine stock ready to be kegged.”
Discovering the Proper Match for Wine on Faucet
What in regards to the different fly within the ointment of keg wine adoption: the psychology of wine on faucet for each customers and winemakers?
Winemakers, with superb purpose, have a little bit of a status as management freaks. These people and their groups are tasked with managing a extremely technical, detailed course of whereas nonetheless honoring the high-minded beliefs of wine. However opting to keg, they’re putting the identical belief they normally reserve for a vetted cork supplier into the palms of no matter particular person bar or restaurant is tapping their wine.
Cork taint worries turn into soiled draft line issues. Granted, there’s equivalency to this equation. One by no means is aware of simply how nicely a retailer maintains their storage temperature both, or how lengthy that BTG bottle has been open on the native wine bar. However getting winemakers to position belief in somebody completely different than they’re accustomed to? Some resistance — truthful or not — is to be anticipated.
As for the psychology of customers, God is aware of we love our beer on faucet. A recent pint after a protracted day at work is a reasonably common need — that first-sip malty mustache a Friday badge of accomplishment. However wine sloshing unceremoniously right into a glass from an nameless faucet, sans that evocative bottle clank and cork pop? Admit it. It simply doesn’t have the identical floor attraction.
“At the moment’s customers, particularly Gen Z and millennials, crave experiences. You may style a bunch of wines, pair small pours with completely different meals, and take a look at new issues with out spending quite a bit.”
Maybe a part of the problem is model and label connection. The beer world invests closely in its faucet deal with designs. They know that when a well-known faucet deal with catches the attention of a thirsty devotee, there’s a Pavlovian response. “[Wine] kegs lack the connection {that a} label on the bottle presents,” Olney says.
It’s a missed alternative — a billboard rented but left clean. Certain, customized faucet handles have their related prices to design, produce, and distribute. However when coping with a year-in-and-year-out cuvée like Ridge’s “Three Valleys” Zinfandel or Brewer’s “Diatom” Chardonnay, wouldn’t a customized faucet deal with be the subsequent apparent step?
Wine on faucet is simply scratching the floor of its full potential. And in truth, its spectacular attributes on all fronts outweigh most detriments. “Extra conventional wine drinkers might draw back from wine in keg, [but] youthful drinkers are extra open,” says Olney. Certainly, it’s in all probability all only a matter of time, acclimation, scale, and some advertising and marketing bells and whistles. The generational transition may simply harken a brilliant future for kegged wine. “At the moment’s customers, particularly Gen Z and millennials, crave experiences,” says Carcara. “You may style a bunch of wines, pair small pours with completely different meals, and take a look at new issues with out spending quite a bit.”
Admittedly, it’ll by no means be an ideal match for each wine and each shopper, and winemakers like Brewer and Olney don’t see the glass bottle turning into outright banished by the likes of kegs. However kegged wine meant for early consumption is a superb idea of noble intent and financial widespread sense for the best conditions, and it might nicely show to be a potent ally amidst a wobbly world second for wine.
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