Thought for Wine

From a small Island in the Indian Ocean any trip you make is overseas. My trips & discoveries in the wine & spirits sector as well what's happening in it around the Indian Ocean will be the core of my blog A bit of me @ www.about.me/deanoxenham

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A cool Bag In Box concept

Ok so, following on with the packaging side of things from my last WINE KEG post, directed a bit more towards the trade. Let’s look at a more consumer orientated packaging, the good old Bag in Box.

You may know it more as the plonk wine container or for the cheaper stuff. But the BIB having made it through the decades and become common part of the wine sector has of course improved and evolved. Better quality material, closures, filling process etc…

On a recent trip to champagne with my fellow classmates of the Wine business masters, we hit up a wine bar in Reims, Vinomania. Particularity they have is they only serve wine by the glass or carafe taken from Bag in Box wines. One of my classmates wrote about the very same place and the concept from different perspective than what is to follow, check it out here.

The company which is a franchise began their quest for better/ higher class wines in Bag in Box about 10 years ago. Since, they’ve come a long way with 8 Vinomania bars currently in France and a further 10 opening this year.

Other than the wine bar concept, what the makes the latter possible is pretty clever. With a mobile BIB filling truck and contracts with wineries around France, they go directly to the producer where they hook-up to the vat of wine, fill the BIB, stick the producers label on the front of the box and voila. No bottling/BIB filling costs or needed investment for a specific machine for the producer who just needs to make the wine, a worry less for him.

The wine will keep after opening if stored appropriately for approx 4 months for white and Rosé and anywhere between 6 – 9 months for the reds, according to the manager of the wine bar. He mentioned though that hardly any BIB takes longer than 3 – 4 weeks to be drained, some not making it past the hour mark. The BIBs are however 2 or 3 litre ones so nothing too huge. 

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Perfect example to support my earlier post on kegs and Wine on Tap. A london Pub on Baker street.

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Can wine marketing benefit from Gamification?

I’ve been following Inc Magazine via twitter since a few weeks now, some really interesting articles. The last one that got lodged in my mind was ‘How to Use Game Mechanics to Reward Your Customers’ an interesting but long read. In short here are the big lines with a focus on wine marketing

This concept of using game mechanics in other industries than in the gaming world has been coined “Gamification”. David Tyler, senior vice president of sales for BunchBall, depicted the concept at the Blog world & new media expo as “applying things that make games interesting to non-gaming activities,”

In essence it’s creating a feel good and achievement factor for the customer, much more than the simple buy one get one free, or the after 10 coffees at Joe’s café you get the 11th one free. A customer can quickly put a monetary on these perks. So what would it be worth to a regular customer to have a fast track line to get his coffee at peek time? Easier to do and less cost not that a coffee is expensive.

As for the achievement factor, this would be like getting points or badges for checking in at certain stores or posting a picture of worthy discounts. In return the badges or awards can be traded in for tangibles or give you a “status” in this virtual world. Of course all this needs to be ironed out, but hopefully you get the idea.

Now how can this be incorporated into the wine sector and its marketing? I’m still toying with the idea, but think status, access and power as the main reward for loyalty customers.

Let’s take a wine store in the likes of Oddbins or Caviste Nicholas that have multiple stores in several cities. What would drive a customer to them other than the coherent product offering across most shops? A discount regardless the shop of Oddbins? Very likely.

I would look more into the personalised experience this loyal customer is getting when at any of the venues. Such as: welcomed by name, optional review of the purchase historic, and the level of membership one has, bronze, silver, gold. What one needs to do to achieve that get to that next status level, the perks that go with it and the bragging rights of course!  

This may or may not be new and be basic CRM but I hope it gave some food for thought. 

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We have been producing 2 of our Napa wines and our Sparkling wine in one-way recyclable(disposable) kegs for quite some time. Much greener and we believe. better for the wine give me a shout at [email protected] and I will send you additional info. cheers , jimmy

Hi Jimmy, thanks for the offer and the comment. I shall take you up on it and send you through a mail next week. I very much like this concept. I assume you've been successful with those wines in keg?! Cheers Dean 

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Wine, Kegs and innovation

There has been a huge hype in the past few months on LinkedIn’s Wine Business Network by the post ‘What do you think the reaction would be to releasing wine in stainless steel refillable kegs ?’ over 178 public comments and still coming. There are for’s and against, vehement defence of the traditional cork bottle and the visionaries who can and have seen an uptake of this style of wine packaging and service. The US has the concept implemented in bars and restaurants since a few years now, Italy is the same and more recently Australia is jumping on it.   

I am not talking about kegging Margaux here don’t get me wrong. But why not the wines that are produced to be drank in the year or so following release? House wines for restaurants? Or just a selection of wines on tap offered by the glass.

Any how I could give you the spiel on pros and cons of the concept, the values for venue owners and customers/consumers alike but I reckon Eric Asimov does that better than me in an article for the NY Times back in 2009.

What caught my interest is the actual packaging. The concept till now is with stainless steel kegs, but what if it would evolve into tough plastic with an internal bladder, say a bag in box style but bigger. I came across a small French start-up EcoFass at the salon de l’Emballage in Paris last year who is developing just that.

It is a polypropylene Keg aka tough plastic with a single-use recyclable bladder that is inserted and then filled. Inert gas (Argon, Nitrogen etc) is replaced by Air that is pressured in between the Keg and Bladder by a compressor to create the same effect. In this design however the pressure is high enough to squeeze out all the liquid from the bladder without the need to inject more air as the volume of liquid diminishes. EcoFass claims that there is less product loss than in traditional stainless steel kegs definite positive and that surface area in contact with are is minimal as it is almost vacuum like environment. Furthermore the Ecofass kegs can fit a standard tapping system currently on the market and their refilling speed is way faster.     

So you think this will have a higher acceptance rate for wine than the stainless steel counter part? Its just a bigger bag in box in a way.

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The Beginning to an island wine

The Island of Mauritius isn’t really the first place that comes to mind when one thinks wine, is it? Sea, sun, sand and rum would be more appropriate right? Though, even the latter isn’t that all well known around the world.

Anyhow wine is the main topic of this post the one on rum will come later.

Picture this; it’s the early 1900’s things aren’t going too strong in Europe on the export side of things WW1 forbid, making it difficult and insanely costly for wine as you and I know it to be landed in Mauritius, British colony at the time. In addition a lengthy and unconditioned shipment wouldn’t have done the wine much good.    

So this one Mauritius born Englishman who enjoys his wine starts experimenting in search for alternatives to this drink we all love. Through trial and error he discovers tropical fruits (litchi, mango and more) that lend themselves superbly to the elaboration of fruit wines, though nothing quite similar to that of the noble grape. Finally, don’t ask me about the chemistry, he figures out a way to produce a basic wine from raisins which at the time were more readily available and easier to import. This little success among his peers and market demand lead him to pioneer the wine industry by opening a wine production & retail business in 1932 to which he gave his name ‘E.C. Oxenham & Cy Ltd’. That guy was my great grandfather J .The business is still present today and has grown and diversified (import & retail of wine) to remain one of the main players in the Mauritian wine and spirits industry. The business still produces wines today however these are now from grape must concentrate imported from South Africa and Italy.