8 Funky New Ways to Package Wine

Dan McFeeley · Sep 26, 2011

A review on Snooth.com on innovative ways to package wine -- not quite as old though as the title suggests. Here's the link:

http://www.snooth.com/articles/8-nonglass-wine-bottles/?sfp=1

Wonder how long it'll be before some of our well known meaderies take some of these up. Heart of Darkness in a box anyone? ;D

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caffeine211 · Sep 26, 2011

Quite interesting! I've only seen wine in glass and boxes. I'd love to get some in a ceramic bottle... those would make great gifts.

Soyala_Amaya · Sep 26, 2011

I've had several meads in the ceramic bottles (Dansk Mjod I believe) but those prefilled glasses just look nifty!

Chevette Girl · Sep 27, 2011

I have a couple of ceramic flip-tops from a local craft beer and they kind of creep me out because I just have to trust that I scrubbed them well enough and didn't leave any scunge inside...

fatbloke · Sep 27, 2011

Spot on there Dan. An excellent link.

The only downside being, that most of it needs some serious machinery and the only one of the types shown in the article that's available to us home brewing types is "bag in a box"

It's such a pain that the suppliers don't want or aren't seemingly interested in providing small quantities......

Medsen Fey · Sep 27, 2011

That's really cool. I've also seen PET plastic wine bottles which I think are a good concept. I particularly like the pre-filled glasses. That is a great idea, and a wonderful way to allow people to be introduced to a new drink without having to make the investment of purchasing a whole bottle. The mead industry might find some serious benefit from something like that.

Of course, it would be even cooler to make a pre-filled PET mead horn! ;D

skunkboy · Sep 27, 2011

A mini barrel just looks odd... Do they line the aluminum bottles with something?

Loadnabox · Sep 28, 2011

I first saw those pre-filled wine plastics on an episode of "Shark Tank" on ABC.

The inventor has patented the method and machinery, though the sharks derided his brew as cheap wine. Strangely he didn't get a deal on it, but I think the concept has a lot of applications in situations where an opening an entire bottle isn't cost effective for a vendor.

kudapucat · Sep 29, 2011

Loadnabox said:
<snip>
situations where an opening an entire bottle isn't cost effective for a vendor.

Yeah, this is why I have collected 180ml, 330ml, 567ml, 750ml and 1500ml bottles, and attempt to used a balance of each for every brew. I hate to waste mead, and I hate to 'have' to drink it, just cos it's open, especially if you're driving home.

WRT Bag in a box, there's a manufacturer here in Aus, I mentioned it some months ago, but they wont supply less than 150bags @ $3 ea. Thes bags are 15 and 30 litres.
I thought they'd be great for aging, but with such an outlay, I'm reticent to try them. I have a datasheet, but was unable to find somebody to tell me they'd be perfect, so have abandonned the idea :-(
I would have to make boxes for them, as this company doesn't make the boxes, but I can make timber crates easily enough.

http://www.scholle.com/ is the company if anybody's interested.
They don't supply to any resellers either, and wouldn't give me the names of any winery's I could 'hit up' and were unable to advise on the viability for long term storage :-(

skunkboy · Sep 29, 2011

kudapucat said:
Yeah, this is why I have collected 180ml, 330ml, 567ml, 750ml and 1500ml bottles, and attempt to used a balance of each for every brew.

Wow, I use all of those except for the 1500ml bottles, how many people do you need around to share out the mead?

AToE · Sep 29, 2011

I always wished wine was sold in 1 litre and 500 ml bottles instead of 750ml and 375ml... just seems like more appropriate amounts to me...

Chevette Girl · Sep 30, 2011

AToE said:
I always wished wine was sold in 1 litre and 500 ml bottles instead of 750ml and 375ml... just seems like more appropriate amounts to me...

...and nice round numbers to make the math for "how many bottles do I need for this batch?" easier

AToE · Sep 30, 2011

Chevette Girl said:
...and nice round numbers to make the math for "how many bottles do I need for this batch?" easier

No, I just find 375ml to be too little for 1 person, and 750ml to be too much for 1, and yet not enough for 2 people.

kudapucat · Sep 30, 2011

Skunky, it depends on how you feel. A mate and I polished off a magnum together the other night, but my FIL and I only shared a pint.
I often share a 330 as a sampler, you get two decent glasses from that. I use the 180 exclusively as a taster, or a personal bottle if it's ginger beer or something.
AToE, I have no use for a litre bottle, but absolutely love and prize my pint bottles. They're so practical. With the variety I have, it's like coins, I can make almost any desired volume from smaller bottles ;-) to within half a glass anyhow.

AToE · Sep 30, 2011

Pint bottles (proper pints, so 500ml on the dot pretty much) are my favourite too, I just find 750ml to be too small, but yes I could always just bring 2 of the pints!

kudapucat · Sep 30, 2011

Our pints are 568 ml
We feel we get shafted by 500ml bottles ;-)

Soyala_Amaya · Oct 1, 2011

I've got about 4 cases 22 ounce bottles, which I guess is around 660 ml? I got a ton of them used for 5.50 a case at my LHBS because they were off size. I find it to be a really good for two people size if we're drinking, or my personal horn is about 20 ounces so it fits really well for any time I want to pass it around!

AToE · Oct 1, 2011

kudapucat said:
Our pints are 568 ml
We feel we get shafted by 500ml bottles ;-)

Huh, I just looked this up and so are ours! Weird, I really thought they were 500ml (my bottles that claim to be 500ml seem to fill a pint glass perfectly... maybe those pint glasses are off...), but this does explain why our pints always seemed so much bigger than US pints to me, 473ml to 500ml isn't much difference, but to 568ml that definitely sounds more right to me.

Weird. Maybe I should measure my pint glasses right now...

AToE · Oct 1, 2011

Ok, I measured them and they're apparently complete nonsense. They have a line drawn on them that claims to be 20 oz, but when I look up how many ml that is I get 591 ml... which is even bigger than an imperial pint is supposed to be. (Maybe they were using some kind of non-US fluid oz??)

But then I used measuring cups to fill it and to fill it up to the line took roughly 495ml... which isn't a pint in anyone's book, it's some odd middleground.

Weird. Anyways, it's a good serving amount of beer I find!

TheAlchemist · Oct 1, 2011

Back in the day:
1pint=2cups=16oz=~480ml
At least that's how I remember it from home economics class...

OH! And Happy Freedom From Tobacco Day, Alan!

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