Wine in cans: improving the process

Wines & Vines, Dec, 2004 by Tina Caputo

We've seen a lot of wine-in-a-can articles recently, reporting on the latest innovations from Australia and domestic novelties like Niebaum-Coppola's canned sparkler, the Sofia Mini. But despite all the buzz, the canned wine concept is not a new one.

U.S. wineries first began canning their products in 1936, the year after beer was first successfully packaged in cans. In the December 1950 issue of Wines & Vines, Leo A. Berti--who had worked for the American Can Co.--chronicled three of the wine industry's early attempts at canning wine.

In the first case, the canned wine fell victim to something called Fresno Mold, which was rampant in California at the time. Though the winery's bottled wines were also contaminated, consumers blamed the cans for the flawed wine, since this type of packaging was new. The second winery had problems with the wine becoming cloudy within a couple months, which turned out to be due to the wine's instability. The third winery managed to avoid both Fresno Mold and unstable wine; instead, the wine ate tiny holes in the cans, thanks to a combination of low pH and high oxygen content.

As Berti wrote in 1950: "The commercial failure of the 1936-1939 packs of wine can be traced to the same problems that trouble us today--the inherent instability of wine packaged, packing diseased wine and occluding too much oxygen in the package."

Despite these problems, wineries didn't give up on cans.

In 1954, two wines were packaged in cans: Carina Kan-o-wine California White Port, made by Yosemite Winery of Madera, Calif., and Mother Goldstein New York State 100% Pure Sacramental Concord Grape Wine, produced by Bacon Liquor Company of Hartford, Conn. Neither product was particularly successful (perhaps the hideous brand names had something to do with it), and they soon faded away.

The 1970s saw another crop of wine-in-cans. In 1971, the French tried to export canned Beaujolais to the United States, without much success. In 1979, Villa Bianchi Winery of Kerman, Calif. (now located in Paso Robles and known as Bianchi Winery) canned a series of wine coolers.

In 1980, Taylor California Cellars began canning wines for United Airlines, and struck a deal with Delta the following year. Geyser Peak introduced a canned wine under the brand name of Summit in 1981. In '82, Villa Bianchi Winery added still wines to its canned cooler lineup.

These experiments were also fairly short-lived.

"We had some quality control issues," explained Glenn Bianchi of Bianchi Winery. "The liners of the cans had some type of plastic coating, because the wine would react if it touched the aluminum. The liners would eventually deteriorate and give the wine a sulfur smell, so when you opened the can it would smell like dirty socks or rotten eggs."

Longevity was also a problem--the wines had only about a six-month shelf life--and consumers didn't take to the cans as readily as the winery had hoped. "We thought there was a big opportunity (for selling canned wines) to the airlines," Bianchi said. "They loved the idea. But the airlines couldn't sell the idea of canned wines (to passengers)."

Producers of today's canned wines claim to have solved the problems that plagued the early canned wines. According to Mark Hughes, wine packaging innovation specialist for Colorado-based Ball Corp., who helped develop Niebaum-Coppola's Sofia Mini cans, the process for packaging wine in cans is a cold-fill process, which is similar to that of beer.

When asked how wine can technology has improved since the '30s, Hughes asserted that the wine itself was the source of the problems in decades past, rather than the cans. "The process of packing wine into cans in the past didn't fail because of technology," he said, "and there were many successful commercial wine and wine cooler packs in the late '80's.

A critical part of the process is that quality wines are necessary to provide good commercial test pack results, which is the same for beer and other beverages."

The Sofia Mini, with its Coppola clout and stylishly slender can, has inspired other wine producers to consider cans.

"Since the launch of the Sofia Mini, there has been a significant amount of interest from a wide range of individuals representing a variety of organizations," Hughes said. "As single-serve consumer consumption for wine continues to increase, Ball's alternative package can deliver wines through channels closed to glass, in a serving size that is just right for many of today's occasions."

The Australians are also on the cutting edge of wine can packaging.

Barokes Australian Premium Wine is packaged using a process called Vinsafe, which has been patented in Australia and numerous other countries under the International Patent Cooperative Treaty.

"Barokes Vinsafe is the only wine-in-a-can technology protected by patents and patents-pending around the world," explained John Gale, international sales and marketing head for Australia's Barokes Pty. Ltd. "This technology has allowed Barokes to achieve what others are unable to--successful wine-in-a-can."