Is the traditional wine bottle about to get canned?

Our changing drinking habits are driving the rise in ‘on the go’ tinned tipples and bag-in-box

VICTORIA MOORE

But is it the right size for 21st-century drinkers? Or is the 75cl bottle beginning to look strangely outdated?

A couple of decades ago 75cl was seen as the perfect measure – the ideal sharing size for two people to enjoy across an evening, maybe after a G&T. Perhaps for the more bibulous it was the perfect size for one. But things are changing. The politics of moderation and the need to work longer with a clear head have reshaped our drinking habits. Do you ever think you’d like just one glass of wine, get out a bottle, look at its size, and put it back? I do.

There are 10 units of alcohol in a bottle of wine (assuming an ABV of 13.5%) and at least two in a decent G&T. According to national statistics, adults drinking 14 or more units of alcohol a week are in a minority. Only 15 per cent – down from 20 per cent 10 years ago – think they drank more than eight/six (men/women) units on the heaviest drinking day in the past week. You could drop the G&T, but the maths still doesn’t look good for the poor old wine bottle. Add to this the fact that in the UK 7.7million people live alone, with 2.8million lone-parent households, and you wonder how this unwieldy size has dominated for so long.

Of course we have seen all manner of alternative packaging over the past decade – pouches and plastic bottles, boxes and transparent plastic cups filled to the brim. But often the wine inside has not been any good – not up to the standards of those who drink for pleasure, rather than those who drink to consume alcohol. Perhaps, though, we will look back and see 2018 as a tipping point.

Oliver Lea is one of the co-founders of the BIB Wine Company, which launched last summer selling good-quality bag-in-box wine online. I was so delighted when I first tried the wines last June that I devoted a

BIB WEINGUT STRAKA

column to it. “We’ve been really overwhelmed by the response from our customers since our launch,” he says. “People say they appreciate the flexibility and convenience factor. They enjoy having a glass without feeling the pressure to finish the bottle before it spoils.” Lea says that while many of his customers now take a “mix and match” approach to buying wine in box and bottle – after all, the BIB range is still only 12 wines strong, so offers a limited variety – “lots have stopped buying bottled wine altogether, and this includes a couple of bars/restaurants that have ditched their bottle service.”

The BIB Company is operating on a small scale, but it is not a lone voice in an ocean of bottles. Sales of bag-in-box wines (which remain drinkable longer than bottled wine once opened because of the varying amount of oxygen that can enter the containers) are up £4.6million over the past three years, according to Nielsen figures, and there is a move towards higher-quality boxed wine, with an increase in sales of the smaller 2.25l at higher price points.

At Waitrose, wine buyer Victoria

Mason says drinkers looking for non-bottle formats is “a growing trend among our customers. We think this is down to both the convenience (especially in the summer months) and the environmental benefits. We have introduced canned and premium bag-in-box wine because we know they’re going to be big in 2019.”

The balance of the comparative benefits – and otherwise – of bag-inbox (which typically contains some non-recyclable plastic), cans and glass bottles (heavier to transport) is complex and contentious, so I’ll save that debate for another time, but there is no doubt that wine in a can has become A Thing.

“Definitely on the up,” says a spokesman for Tesco. Sales of this format have risen by 263 per cent over three years, according to Nielsen, and although wine in a can still represents only a tiny – 0.04 per cent – segment of the market, it’s expected to rise “as shoppers look for more convenient, smaller, on-the-go formats”. I tasted my first seriously good wine in a can last year: the Uncommon, an English bacchus sold in Selfridges, and put together by two entrepreneurs who had seen the success of canned wine Stateside. There are more launches planned for 2019, among them, white and rosé in a can from a company called Nice that looks to be aimed at millennials (“Stalk me” suggests the website), and a rosé from Mirabeau in Provence. If you thought wine in a can was always going to be cheap/lowest common denominator, then Ferdinand Albarino will make you think again – a four-pack of 375ml cans costs £42.

So will it soon be goodbye bottle? Well, no. Bag-in-box and cans are all very well for wines intended to be drunk young but the packaging has a short shelf life. So don’t expect to see Château Lafite turning to bag-in-box any time soon. For finer wines, especially those that improve with a little ageing, glass is impossible to beat. “It is wonderfully inert, and fantastic for preserving stuff. It has worked pretty well for 300 years – and the bigger the bottle the better,” as Dan Jago, CEO of Berry Bros & Rudd, puts it. Although there is an upsurge in interest in half-bottles, wine does not mature as well in 37.5cl as it does in

75cl and it does better still in magnum. Does Berry Bros & Rudd, Britain’s oldest wine merchant – with a very fine shop on Pall Mall – sell any wine in anything but glass? “No. Part of me would love to see our Good Ordinary Claret in bag-in-box but then I tasted a bottle the other day that was five years old and so good – and it wouldn’t have been if it hadn’t been in a bottle.”

Will there be a shift towards two-speed drinking: cans and good bag-in-box for upmarket commodity wine; bottles for sharing with friends when you’re making more of an occasion of it? It’ll be interesting to see where we are in 20 years’ time.