Grapevine
Convenience. What a concept. In 2014, we’ve evolved as a society that places significant weight on being able to reduce our precious time to focus on the most important matters and that seeks other means to satisfy seemingly less important matters.
And there are always enterprising companies seeking to market to this need. In fact, whole segments of our markets have been created to cater to enhancing our convenience, to assist us in focusing on matters we deem important. The word has entered the vernacular to connote instant gratification: convenience foods, convenience stores and household conveniences.
Henry Ford offered a convenient alternative to the horse and buggy: the Model T. AT&T and others offered a convenient alternative to land lines: cell phones. Amazon offered a more convenient way to shop: with your fingers, not your shoe leather.
And then there is perhaps the greatest convenience entrepreneur of all times, Steve Jobs. Who but he envisioned that we needed one convenient device to replace the multiple and oftentimes bulky instruments we grew up with. In one fell swoop he changed our lives forever, making convenience a primary, not a secondary, aspect of our lives: a telephone, search engine, camera, photo and video storage album, mail box, music library/player, game console and a myriad of other applications, all in a newly designed, convenient, hand-held device that fits in one’s pocket.
Over my six-plus years of penning this column, I’ve reported on a number of conveniences evolving around wine, all attempting to be innovative and capitalizing on new technology. Since many evolve around alternative wine packaging, it was with a piqued curiosity that I read on the Internet another offering in this better mousetrap category. I’ve previously reported on the pluses and minuses of screw tops, wine-in-a-box, wine-in-a-can, Tetrapacks and mini-bottles.
A new product is on the market. Stack Wine purports to make wine drinking convenient and fun.
How many times have you had issues with the inconvenience of a bottle of wine? I offer a few examples: backyard parties, picnics, tailgating, beaches and camping. Wouldn’t you be grateful if some entrepreneur came up with a convenient way to eliminate the glass bottle, the need for a cumbersome corkscrew and the issues in transporting and cleaning wine glasses? Not to mention the possible risks involved with open-container laws.
Along come prepackaged individual portions of red and white wines. The concept is brilliant marketing. Stack Wine is basically four plastic stemless glasses, shrink-wrapped for your convenience. Simply “Zip, Snap and Sip” as the logo suggests. Pull the plastic Zip-per on the side of the stack and the four glasses are released; Snap them apart, pull the lid on each glass and Sip to your heart’s content. The four glasses contain the equivalent volume of a standard bottle of wine, so portion control further enhances the convenience of Stack Wine. The added convenience is that although an unfinished bottle will quickly spoil, each unopened Stack Wine glass remains fresh for the next occasion.
Handy, convenient and disposable–they are adult juice boxes.
Clearly these wines are geared toward casual drinking. But is this latest product more about the packaging than the wine?
At about $13 a stack, I guess you can’t expect much. But should I? In the end it’s all about the quality of the wine. But what level of quality? The producer (packager) states the wines were selected specifically for the above occasions where/when the wines are expected to be consumed.
They may have a point. The French have a phrase for these styles of wines–vin de soif–thirst-quenching wines that go down easy and are not intended to be serious. Simply pleasurable. The makers of Stackable Wines may have hit on a successful marketing pitch. I invite you to experiment and communicate to me your opinions.
Nick Antonaccio is a 35-year Pleasantville resident. For over 15 years he has conducted wine tastings and lectures. He also offers personalized wine tastings and wine travel services. Nick’s credo: continuous experimenting results in instinctive behavior. You can reach him at nantonaccio@theexaminernews.com or on Twitter @sharingwine.
