Will younger consumers appreciate eight bottles of single-serve wine?
Imagine this: a 20-something, arriving for a dinner party, puts an eight-pack of wine on the table, each a single serve bottle.
Are we on the way to solving wine’s generation gap?
Maybe, says analyst Jon Moramarco, speaking at an industry webinar earlier this month. Moramarco is one of the most respected analysts in the wine business, the editor of the Gomberg Fredrikson Report, which tracks wine sales, and managing partner of the market research firm bw166.
His suggestion: The eight-pack of 125 ml bottles, which would include red, white, rose, and sweet blends. The wines would be lower in alcohol and the pack would cost around $15. In addition, he said, the product should be marketed toward younger women, with packaging designed to reach that demographic.
Pretty spiffy, yes?
The concept, of course, is not new, as the picture at the top of the post shows. Wineries have been selling multi-packs in smaller bottles for years. What’s different about Moramarco’s proposal is the size – 125 ml is smaller than the traditional 187 ml multi-pack bottle — and the contents, four different wines instead of just the one.
Which makes his idea about as revolutionary as these things get these days.
So what’s wrong with it (since I am the WC, and must point that out)?
• How do we guarantee wine quality? Typically, single-serve bottles are made to hit price points and not to taste like wine (as anyone who has ever suffered through an airline bottle knows).
• Manufacturing. A 125 ml bottle is not a standard size, which raises all sorts of supply chain and bottling questions. Plus, I can just hear the moaning from winery executives: “We can’t put different wines in the same pack – we’ve never done that before!”
• Retailers. As noted here many times, most wine is sold in 750 ml bottles; hence, most stores aren’t set up to sell something that isn’t in a 750 ml bottle. Any retailer willing to take this project on would have to be willing to rearrange shelving and adjust displays – not an easy task.
Still, don’t let it be said that the WC is standing in the way of progress. This is the first idea that I’ve heard in years that doesn’t make me worry about the future of the wine business. So let me do my part: how about calling it, “I’ll bring the wine”?