Is Australia About to Revolutionise Wine - Again?

Australia deserves credit for having popularised new forms of wine packaging twice. Is it about to make that a hat trick?

In 1965, Australian winemaker Thomas Angove took packaging developed for car battery acid and adapted it for wine. Other Australian businesses, including Penfolds, followed his lead, and the bag-in-box, or ‘cask’ was born. For many years, over half of Australia’s and New Zealand’s wine was sold in that format, a market share it still enjoys in the Nordics.

Caps

In 1964, Australia’s Yalumba winery decided to try sealing bottles with screwcaps and began talks with Le Bouchage Mechanique in France. Nine years later, they - along with Tahbilk and Penfolds -released their first wines with Stelvin closures. At the time, this pioneering effort proved to be a step too far for Australian consumers, but at the turn of the century, the freshness of these and other wineries’ screwcapped

bottles from the 1980s gave Australian and New Zealand industries confidence to give up closures that required the use of corkscrews.

In 2024, another business, Australian Vintage, began researching the commercial appeal of launching Poco Vino, a colourfully packaged brand in small 187ml bottles. A survey of 3,000 wine drinkers found that 80-90% expressed an intention to buy, with nearly half saying they would do so in addition to existing formats. As the company CEO, Tom Dusseldorp told Drinks Business, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.”

Dusseldorp hopes Poco Vino will help the wine industry escape the “vicious cycle of rinse and repeat” in which it has been trapped.

So, why small formats? What’s wrong with good old, tried-and-tested 750ml?

1) Moderation: 750ml is simply too much for two people who want to follow the ‘drink in moderation’ advice that the wine industry claims to support

2) Convenience: small formats save the need to use Vacuvin, or Coravin devices

3) Food waste: far too much wine is thrown away by people who have failed to finish a bottle

4) Cost: the price of small formats may be higher per cl, but people wanting to drink moderately will probably spend less

5) Lifestyle: more people are living alone, or with partners who do not share their taste in wine. 75cl bottles far from ideal for these households.

6) Trialling: small formats facilitate exploration, allowing producers to introduce new styles without requiring customers to dig deeply into their wallets for wines they may not like. This is especially true of premium and super premium wines.

7) Education: the wine industry says consumers need ‘educating’. Small formats make this far easier and more affordable.

8) Personal Taste: small formats make it easier for people to choose styles they want (including NoLos) when drinking together.

9) Fun: packaging like Poco Vino’s introduces fun to an industry that is often seen as staid.

Predictably, one British status-quoist opinion former claims that Poco Vino is not doing anything very new, which is rather like saying that wines were available with screwcaps before 2000. And it may, indeed, take a while for other wine businesses to follow Australian Vintage’s lead. After all, bag-in-box and screwcaps did not take off overnight and afrer a quarter of a century, people are still arguing the toss over corks versus screwcaps.

But the industry is facing a huge crisis right now, and the response to Poco Vino at Wine Paris and the growing success of the canned brand, Archer Roose and others, gives me confidence that the time for the 187ml format in glass and PET has come.

Treasury next?

My guess is that another Australian business, Treasury Wine Estates, could soon come up with its own 187ml brand, though possibly not with the Penfolds brand, which was so instrumental in the early days of bag-in-box and screwcaps.

Twenty-one years ago, when Hugh Ryman and I launched a French version of the popular Australian Cabernet-Shiraz blend under our then-new Le Grand Noir brand in Languedoc, there were plenty of local status-quoists who were convinced we’d fail. It was their attitude that inspired us to put the black sheep on the label that is still proudly there today.

Today, I’m absolutely NOT saying that the 750ml bottle has had its day. I’m just calling for an end to its industry dictatorship. And I’m certainly looking at ways of incorporating the 187ml format into our Le Grand Noir and K’AVSHIRI brands - while raising my cap to Australia’s vinous packaging pioneers.

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Additional note. Since originally posting this, I have had some comments referring to the challenge of the high COGs - Cost Of Goods - associated with smaller formats.
This is undeniable, plus, there’s the cost of tooling up to fill smaller bottles.
But… for context, Poco Vino sells in the big Australian specialist chain Dan Murphy’s for AU$12 for 2, or the equivalent of AU$24 per 75cl. Pinot Grigio of a similar quality and style to Poco Vino’s sells for between AU$6-12…