Tag Archives: masterpeace

A better attempt at wine in Tetra Pak

4 Replies

[… or my revised title: “Thinking of Outside the Box” – see comments]

Le Village du Sud is a new brand concept from the well respected Mont Tauch cooperative in the South of France (specifically in Fitou).

It caught my attention as, once again, they are being pretty innovative with their branding and their route to market. They have usually provided wines that are a cut above the competition, and they have also been much more willing to take on marketing activities, such as bringing wine makers and grape growers (who speak no English but really look the part) to wine tastings across the UK, including the BBC Good Food Show where I saw them.

This time it is the Tetra Pak, something I have written about in the past. Once again it is available from The Coop. They are certainly keener than most to do something ‘sustainable’ and positive for the environment – whether environmentally friendly or fairtrade.

The wine in question is an Old Vine Grenache in a 1 litre tetra pak. The packaging itself is a little different, with extra angles and a “prism shape”. However, what I found intriguing is that they have managed to move the design away from being a pseudo glass bottle. They have realised that a tetra pak allow you to do a lot more with the packaging than simply copy the information from a label (which is always extremely limited) or to show a picture of a bottle or glass (the usual cop-out).

This one has a series of cartoons that give the wine an extra dimension of personality not usually associated with Vin de Pays d’Oc, especially as it is in English. This is very bold, forward-thinking and fun.

Shame about the wine!

As I always point out, this is not a site for tasting notes, but I did try this wine to see if I could detect something specifically “tetra pak like” in it, just to see if the packaging affected the taste. Now, I admit this was not done blind, but I have no problem liking wines in other packaging, so I was not negatively predisposed. However, I found a very unpleasant aftertaste in the wine which I assume must come from the packaging as I do actually like their wines normally. I’d love to read more informed views on whether this is a truly inert packaging format for wine.

Finally, a niggle. If you look at the front of the packaging, you’ll see a badge which I also saw on the previous tetra pak I reviewed called masterpeace.

“33% free” and “33% more wine free compared to a standard 75cl bottle”

FREE? There are lots of objections to this statement, chief of which is that this wine is NOT available in 75cl glass bottles, so how can it possibly be compared? Also, this wine was already discounted, ostensibly for the launch, from £4.99 to £3.99. Quite how much of a cheap and “drink loads” mentality do they want to associate with this wine?

I do hope that 1L formats will not keep using this statement.

Overall review; nice idea, but once again more show than substance, largely due to the final quality of the wine.

New Packaging – Wine Tetrapack

4 Replies

I have been suffering from one of the worst chest infections in my life and have been unable to taste or even think about wine clearly for the last month, so apologies for the extended silence.

As I was shopping for milk in my local co-op convenience store the other day, I came across one of the latest novelties in packaging for wine. The tetrapack.

I have seen the format before, (I am thinking of French Rabbit from Boisset) but I hadn’t actually seen it on shelf before. I was intrigued to find this in a small store in my local area, so I bought it for curiosity’s sake. Unfortunately, when I opened it to try it, I couldn’t taste it, so I have no comments on the quality of the wine.

The wine in question is Andrew Peace‘s masterpeace Australian Chardonnay, launched at the Australia Day Tasting in January.

Is this the future for wine? Let me think about some pro’s and con’s first.

On the positive side;

  • It weighs less so it is cheaper and more environmentally friendly to ship

  • The opaque carton protects the wine from the harmful effects of bright sunlight and UV

  • It is a sterile, sealed environment unlikely to become “corked”

  • It gives greater surface for marketing messages and useful information

  • It is easier to store; no wine rack required

  • I believe it is supposed to be recyclable

  • It is not all that different from the bag-in-box format we are already familiar with and which is becoming more popular

    • On the negative side;

  • It has been done before for the cheapest of the cheap wines in the days that these were undrinkable (things have improved even at this level in the wine trade), and is therefore tarnished with this perception

  • It is still made from plastic and various metallic compounds, so how environmentally friendly can it be?

  • You get no visual clues at all about the wine. Think of the attractions of rose wines, deep gold sweet wines, etc. All wines will look the same, or at least the colour the marketer/printer want you to think it is

  • Bottle shapes have always been a differentiator, not just on weight for ‘better’ wines, but classic regional shapes like the tall bottles from Alsace, or embossed Chateau-neuf-du-pape

  • It is not all that different from the bag-in-box format we are already familiar with

    • None of the pros and cons immediately jump out at me as “killer” reasons for or against. This packaging is likely to be used only for cheap, young wine to be drunk immediately, so convenience will matter. And if, on balance, it is more environmentally friendly to produce and dispose of, then even better.

    So, is this the future of wine? I don’t consider myself an old-fashioned wine purist. I am all for the screwcap and other modern closures for example. However, I am not convinced by this format for the simple reason that it further reduces wine to a mere convenience beverage, one that happens to contain alcohol and be made from grapes.

    If we are to educate consumers about responsible drinking, encouraging them to drink wine but to do so in moderation and hopefully at a quality level that will bring them pleasure, then it is important we do not “dumb it down” too much.

    Wine branding is not only about building a name and image for the producer, or even of the region, but for the product category itself. This isn’t about being elitist (although I recognise it could sound that way), it is about building a sensible Culture of Wine. Quality packaging is integral to that I think. That isn’t to say we should stick to glass per se, but I would like to see something better differentiated than a carton.

    Unfortunately, I don’t think this is it, but it is certainly something to ponder further.