Tag Archives: Zipz

The ZIPZ failure and why it matters to wine drinkers

fetzer zipzNo, single-serve plastic glasses of wine did not “disrupt” wine

Remember ZIPZ? It was the next big thing in wine, an oversized plastic glass with one serving that was endorsed by the masters of the universe at Shark Tank about a decade ago.

Don’t remember it? Not to worry. Almost no one else does, either.

Mashed recounts ZIPZ’s sad, not unsurprising history, and it’s well worth reading for those of us who wonder – and lament – that wine has had such difficulty adapting to the 21st century. The ZIPZ glass, for all of its many failings, was a unique way to package wine – call it “disruptive,” if you must.

Yet it never had a chance, and that it didn’t speaks to how the wine business resists change, even when change is exactly what is needed.

Why not a chance?

• First, the wine was lousy. That it would be difficult to find quality wine to put in a plastic, single-serve glass apparently surprised ZIPZ’s creator, who probably had never seen anything quite like the bulk wine market.

• Second, the three-tier system. You just can’t make ZIPZ wine and sell it to Costco, which seemed to be the plan. Rather, it has to go through a wholesaler, and why would a wholesaler want to waste its time on something as funky as lousy single-serve wine in a plastic glass? And where the margins would be so tiny?

•Third, retailers. Most wine in the U.S. is sold in 750 ml bottles, which means store shelves are set up to stock 750 ml bottles. So where do you stack cases of single-serve plastic glasses? This nugget somehow escaped the moneyed geniuses at Shark Tank; call it a lesson in the supply chain they would eventually have to learn.

The irony of all this? That canned wine does all the things that ZIPZ was supposed to do, and does it more efficiently. And that canned wine, for all of its many failings, is the next big thing in wine. Wonder why none of the geniuses saw that?

Is Fetzer’s Zipz glass the answer for portable wine?

fetzer zipzIs the Fetzer Zipz glass the answer for portable wine?

As usual, the answer depends on how much you pay for the wine. If you have to pay some concessionaire bandit $11 at a baseball game, absolutely not. But if you can find the wine in the plastic glass for $3 at a grocery store, and you ?re not fussy about what it tastes like and you want the convenience, you could do worse.

The Zipz effort has 187 milliliters of wine, about one glass (one-quarter of a bottle). It’s a PET product, made with the kind of plastic commonly used for bottled water containers.

The Zipz looks like a wine glass, if a little clunky. It;s sealed with wrapping around the rim and stem, a plastic top, and pullback foil over the wine. The idea behind Zipz is to sell wine in places where it’s impractical for bottles and glasses, like ball games, concerts, and the like. Or, consumers can buy it at retail and take it camping or on picnics.

In this, the Zipz was surprisingly easy to open, even when I did it the wrong way the first couple of times. Tear the wrapping at the strip, gently pry the top off, and pull back the foil. I only spilled a little wine once. Plus, it was easy to chill.

The problem is that the wine is not Fetzer’s best effort. Something like House Band, a similar concept, is better made. The Quartz White (sample, 12%) was the better of the two, an apple-ly, sweet and sour blend made with more than six grapes and that tasted of moscato, though there was more chardonnay than anything else. It’s a bit sweet, which helps to cover some of the bitterness from what could be unripe grapes.

The Crimson Red (sample, 13.5%) is a lot of what turns people off of red wine — tannic and bitter, despite a slight sweetness. Both glasses I tasted seemed oxidized, and I wonder if the PET handles heat (which is one cause of oxidation) as well as glass. Or maybe both were just stored badly.

The wine has fake oak, zinfandel and syrah (plus at least four other grapes), but the blend is not greater than the whole. Having said that, if I ?m at the beach, grilling burgers, only drink red wine, and I’m not picky, it’s OK. Adding an ice cube won’t hurt.