Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/123973
have taken the plunge into pouch packaging. Those that have are mainly small, producing a few thousand cases a year, and looking for some point of differentiation to increase their market leverage. They are mostly true believers in "pouch technology," but even if their sales are strong, their evangelism is realistic. The transition from bottle to pouch is not without its pitfalls. "I tell people to start slow," said Bruce Regalia, winemaker at Clif Family Winery in St. Helena, Calif., which offers a wine called The Climber in pouches. (The name alludes to the target market for the wine: outdoor enthusiasts. Not coincidentally, the Clif family also produces Clif Bar energy bars.) "Don't do 20,000 cases, there's a lot that's going to happen." Steve DiFrancesco, winemaker at New York's Glenora Wine Cel- 42 V I N E YARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT | May - June 2013 Clif Family Winery created an outdoorsy theme for its pouch wine, The Climber, which ties in with the packaging's portability. lars in the Finger Lakes – the first winery in the U.S. to bring a pouch wine to market, in 2010 – started carefully. Using pouches imported from England, he constructed an experiment, filling them with different wines and storing them side-by-side with bottles under a variety of conditions. "We took a bottle and a pouch from each area after 58 days," he said. "We took another one of each out at 342 days, and we tasted them and checked for sulfur. The bottles we opened at 58 days we also tasted and checked for sulfur 22 days after they were opened, to see where (the wine) would fail." Even under the best of circumstances, the wine in the pouch w w w. v w m m e d i a . c o m