by Sharon Kapnick

New ways to package wine continue to proliferate. In an effort to improve quality, lower costs and/or preserve the environment — and, perhaps, to boost sales — wine continues to turn up in different containers, from barrels and kegs at restaurants, to vending machines and huge tanks at supermarkets, to tiny 25-ml (1.7-oz.) bottles in mailboxes.

Cutting-edge restaurants have been dispensing wine from elegant, reusable wood barrels since July 2009, when DeLoach Vineyards, owned by the always innovative Boisset Family Estates, introduced its highly regarded Pinot Noirs in 10-liter barrels. To date, hundreds of upscale restaurants have signed on to the program for their wine-by-the-glass service.

Each barrel contains a 10-liter biodegradable eco-bag — 1 liter more than a standard case — cradled inside a cardboard box, turducken-like. This system offers important advantages: It ensures the wine’s freshness for eight weeks, dramatically reduces storage, waste and labor costs, and helps preserve the environment.

The bag holds 67 5-ounce glasses of wine, the equivalent of 13 1/3 (750-ml) glass bottles. According to DeLoach, while 13 empty glass bottles weigh 16.4 lbs., the empty bag weighs an astoundingly light 2.4 oz. DeLoach also claims that packaging is lowered by 99% compared to glass, thus ensuring a dramatically reduced carbon footprint. (Last month DeLoach began selling and renting 10-liter barrels directly to consumers for home use; it also sells 3-liter mini-barrels [see www.barreltobarrel.com]).

Other forward-looking restaurants and wine bars have recently been adding, or retrofitting, tap lines so wine can be served from kegs like beer. Why? Because kegged wine offers the same advantages that DeLoach’s barrels do. One especially notable plus in these difficult financial times: Keg systems are estimated to save consumers 25%-30%.

In a keg system, the wine is pushed along by inert argon or nitrogen. It stays fresh for months because oxygen, wine’s enemy, is eliminated. (Beer taps use carbon dioxide to do the pushing, but CO2 carbonizes, i.e. adds bubbles.)

While kegged wine has had some success in Europe, it didn’t catch on in the US until this decade. The largest restaurant wine-keg system here, launched in 2004, is at Two Urban Licks in Atlanta, which has opted to serve only kegged wine and has 42 choices on tap. The keg systems are also popular in New York City and California.

Because of the significant advantages of kegs, many are convinced that wine on tap is the way of the future. Bruce Schneider, co-founder of the Gotham Project along with partner Charles Bieler, started selling a kegged New York Finger Lakes Riesling in April. The reception has been enthusiastic, and they’ve added a New York North Fork Cabernet Franc, a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc and a German Riesling. “This technology, which has long been used at wineries, has three main things going for it,” says Schneider. “You can’t beat kegs for freshness and great taste, great value and low impact on the environment.” New York City restaurateur Paul Grieco, who features kegs at Terroir Tribeca, recently told New York magazine that he thinks “every new restaurant that opens will dedicate at least one beer line to wine.”

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