Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/37334
Harvest/Postharvest Quality wine BY THE GLASS ames Martin hopes to enhance the reputation of single-serving wine containers with his upscale product called Copa Di Vino. It’s a sealed plastic drinking cup that looks like glass and contains good-quality Washington State wine—not the jug wine normally found in single-serving contain- ers. Each Copa Di Vino cup contains 6.3 ounces (the equivalent of a quarter of a bottle of wine) and is designed for younger wine drinkers who want “grab-and-go” convenience and don’t want to drink a whole bottle at a time, Martin says. James Martin is fighting the jug wine image of single-serve containers. The idea came to Martin when he was on a train with his wife, Molli, during a vacation in France in 2008. They each ordered wine from the beverage cart. Hers came in the usual single-serve bottle, but his came in a tiny barrel-shaped glass, with a foil seal over the top, ready to open and drink. The couple, from The Dalles, Oregon, had already started a wine busi- ness called Quenett Winery with a tasting room in nearby Hood River. When he got back from vacation, Martin pursued the single-serving idea and found that other U.S. companies had tried it but failed because of difficulties in sealing the containers. “I realized the French company must be onto something, and I con- by Geraldine Warner tacted them,” Martin said. The company, ¼ Vin, was owned by a single entrepreneur, Pascal Carvin. Martin went to visit Carvin in Toulon, France. They became partners in a new company called One Glass Wine and patented the bottling and sealing technology in the United States. Initially, they used glass containers for the Copa de Vina wines but were able to develop a new way of molding plastic to create the illusion of glass. Cherry orchard Martin, 47, grew up on a cherry orchard in The Dalles in eastern Oregon. He studied engineering and math at college and worked in “high-tech” sales and marketing in Portland before returning to The Dalles to work at his father-in-law Dennis Haener’s cherry orchard. While driving the tractor around the orchard, he dreamed of developing a vineyard there and took short courses in wine making at the University of California, Davis, to pursue that goal. He never planted the vineyard, but in 2003 started making wines from purchased grapes, using the facil- ities of a friend, Richard Batchelor, who is winemaker at Maryhill Winery, across the Columbia River in Goldendale, Washington. From a cash-flow stand- James Martin checks the bottling line for his single-serving wine containers. The containers are sealed with foil, using a process that modifies the atmosphere inside. 20 AUGUST 2011 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com