For The Love Of Port

I will likely use this in the March or April issue of the newsletter. It is certainly something that would be interesting to hear what the Port trade thinks of this idea. The only issue I see, is being able to produce a Port that tastes good enough and could be priced reasonably enough to capture market share and shelf space.

It sounds like there is a little less stigma on boxed wines in the US than perhaps here in Australia. There is a lot less of this packaging around than there used to be, but I've rarely seen any wine of even medicore quality make it into box. I have seen Australian tawny in a 2L box but it has been pretty dire stuff. Ocasionally, I still see 20L boxes of red or white wine in pubs. Not sure I could afford 6 grapes in a box - last time i checked it was $45 a bottle here!

Paul Fountain wrote:It sounds like there is a little less stigma on boxed wines in the US than perhaps here in Australia. There is a lot less of this packaging around than there used to be, but I've rarely seen any wine of even medicore quality make it into box. I have seen Australian tawny in a 2L box but it has been pretty dire stuff.

Sadly that is the stigma in a lot of places, the USA included. But there is a boat load of wine sold in larger format. The trick is keeping the price point down, keeping the quality high, and some good marketing.

From a purely price point stance, a basic Ruby would probably be make more sense than a Ruby Reserve such as Bin 27 or Six Grapes. I would think the cost of a Ruby Reserve in a 1 or 2 liter box would push the $20-35+ mark. Might be a little too pricey for the average person. But if it's a decent Ruby at a good price it could make sense not only for drinking but to use for cooking as well. Or maybe drinking and cooking at the same time

I would love to hear what the trade thinks of this.

How much consensus would there need to be within the trade in order to push through the necessary changes in IVDP regulations?

Andy Velebil wrote:I would love to hear what the trade thinks of this.

Port in a box is at least decade over due.

Moses Botbol wrote:

Andy Velebil wrote:I would love to hear what the trade thinks of this.

Port in a box is at least decade over due.

+1

Many of us agree. I wonder if it is an economic situation. This is worthy of AQFTPT.

Hello everybody....
Well... I must confess that at some point of time I went back to the beginning of the thread, looking at the start date, hoping it would show April 1st... But then I realized that you guys are serious. Wow.
I'm German, having family in Germany and Portugal. We always have a few small boxes of wine at home - which is used only for cooking. So my mind-set is that wine in boxes is of the poorest possible quality.
Being a European, my perception of the reality is of course different from the perception of a North American person... But for me a port in a box is something I just can't get my head around. What is the magic of Port Wine? It's about history. It's about traditions. It's old barrels, standing in century-old buildings. It's like time stood still.
When I go to Taylor's lodge and I look at all the old bottles from the 18th century, oddly formed and shaped - that is where I want my Port Wine to be stored in. Not a heart-less box without tradition!
Last autumn I saw in a Quinta in the Douro bottles with a screw-cap - which made me believe the Mayans might be right and the end of the world really might be near (luckily it turned out that those bottles were not Port but "normal" wine.. bad enough...).
I see the point - you have to drink your Ruby quick - and the box is supposed to keep it longer in good conditions. But personally I would rather buy a case of half-bottles of BIN27 than a 3-Liter-box.
Please don't forget that the typical European fridge is way smaller than an American fridge. So it would be difficult for many Europeans to store the box after opening in a fridge.
For me, Port in a box is not an option.

"Port in a box is like a Ferrari-engine built into a Fiat" (Marques de Pombal, 1772)

Christian Gollnick wrote: Please don't forget that the typical European fridge is way smaller than an American fridge. So it would be difficult for many Europeans to store the box after opening in a fridge.
For me, Port in a box is not an option.

"Port in a box is like a Ferrari-engine built into a Fiat" (Marques de Pombal, 1772)

Fiat has already done that, remember the Fiat Dino...

Port in a box does not need to be in fridge, but to have port that has a 1 year shelf life once open is the intent and at a great price per litre.

Christian Gollnick wrote: Being a European, my perception of the reality is of course different from the perception of a North American person... But for me a port in a box is something I just can't get my head around.

I agree. Also, I don't see what it would add for the port industry. About 80% of all port is either consumed in Portugal or exported to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. For those regions, I guess the mindset is the same: bag-in-box==cheap, low quality wine. So even an attempt to market anything else than the most basic of wines in that kind of packaging is simply bound to fail.

Basic Ruby (and Tawny) is sold here in liter-bottles for under EUR 4 (or sometimes even under EUR 3) per bottle. These are usually white-label brands for which there is already no profit margin whatsoever. Bag-in-box wouldn't add anything for either the retailer or the shipper in this market. As for why these are sold without any margin: supermarket chains make an arrangement with one of the major shippers (Sogevinus, Symington) to also (and exclusively) offer the regular, branded ports from the same shipper. You'll usually see the cheap, white-label liter-bottles of port with unattractive labels in the bottom shelf, the regular branded ruby's and tawny's in the middle shelf and LBV's, aged tawny and sometimes a vintage on the top shelf. Bag-in-box would offset that arrangement. Replacing the liter bottles would be an option, but would not add much. Even people that buy those liter bottles will prefer buying an actual bottle, not a "cheap" bag-in-box.

What is sold in bag-in-box format here is cheap wine: your basic South African Chenin ("Droe Steen"). 3 liters for about EUR 10. But you can also get a similar wine for EUR 2,99 per bottle, so it's actually not that much cheaper to buy bag-in-box. I guess most bag-in-box wine sales end up at private parties where people buy them because they like the idea of having their own "wine tap" and don't have any glass bottles left over from the party - thus saving on recycling efforts. But their market share is so extremely low here that I would not be surprised if these would disappear alltogether.

One other major issue is the limited shelf-life for bag-in-box wines. As far as I know, the consensus is that chemicals from the bags start to influence the taste of the wine after about 6 months from the packaging date.

What /could/ be a novel new packaging idea for the port trade is bag-in-barrel. Small wooden wine barrels instead of cartons, but with a bag inside and a small tap on the outside. You could actually market a high-quality port inside such packaging. But still, the market share would be low - I can however see good sales for products such as these during the holidays as they make great gifts.

Roel.

Well, for those of you whom read your FTLOP newsletter, the vast majority of people commenting on this topic from inside the Port trade, made it very clear that they don't see this as economically viable or a good idea. So if you can't win over the Port trade, getting regulations changed within the IVDP is going to be impossible. Also included was an official from the IVDP that presented specifics on why the legislation exists as it does today. So, I'd say ... that at least at this point in time, it is a moot point.

Roy Hersh wrote:the vast majority of people commenting on this topic from inside the Port trade, made it very clear that they don't see this as economically viable or a good idea.

Damn. My hopes of having a 9 litre box of Fonseca 1970 that could last 9 days after opening have been somewhat dashed.

Derek T. wrote:My hopes of having a 9 litre box of Fonseca 1970 that could last 9 days after opening have been somewhat dashed.

1. Open 9-litre Fonseca 1970.
2. Soon after, lots of ‘friends’ arrive.
3. It doesn’t last nine days.

That isn’t entirely the fault of the IVDP.

Julian D. A. Wiseman wrote:1. Open 9-litre Fonseca 1970.
2. Soon after, lots of ‘friends’ arrive.
3. It doesn’t last nine days.

That isn’t entirely the fault of the IVDP.

You have assumed I would be sociable enough to tell other people that I had an open 9 litres of Fonseca 1970. Is a man allowed no secrets?

Derek T. wrote:You have assumed I would be sociable enough to tell other people that I had an open 9 litres of Fonseca 1970. Is a man allowed no secrets?

Please verify that there is nobody else in your house with a Facebook account. Or, please verify that you have recently bought sufficient shoes for such a person or persons.

Julian D. A. Wiseman wrote:please verify that you have recently bought sufficient shoes for such a person or persons.

More shoes than any person or persons could ever need. All is as it should be.

Derek T. wrote:More shoes than any person or persons could ever need.

I.e., less than “sufficient”.

Julian D. A. Wiseman wrote:

Derek T. wrote:More shoes than any person or persons could ever need.

I.e., less than “sufficient”.

In knitting circles there us a term: SABLE. It stands for Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy. A useful term in many other circles as well... Port and shoes included.

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