WILD WINE LABELS AND RETRO BOXED WINES: IS QUALITY SUFFERING FOR SALES?

Nowadays, wine-producers are going to great lengths to “demystify” wine and speak to the fickle, always changing millennial generation. The popularization of boxed wine and wacky bottle labels has resulted from the relaxed image the industry seeks to create. As Greg Morago from the Courant reported, silly, catchy names such as Screw Kappa Napa and Cheeky Chick’s Pecker’s Blend are the big craze in the wine industry right now, especially for Australian imports. “The names reflect the Australian character,” said Rick Anderson, director of sales and marketing for D’Arenberg. “We also like to enjoy life and not get bogged down in the rhetoric of wine snobbery.” And the crazy labels are catching on, especially within the millennial generation that encompasses young adults from 21-28. However, the quality of the wine may in some instances take backseat to the eye-catching label. "In Australia, you have to be wary of these new wines that spring up out of nowhere with funny names and crazy labels. There is a serious glut of wine in Australia right now, so you find the big wine corporations bottling up excess juice without a serious commitment to quality, throwing a wacky label on it, putting it out in the market and seeing if it stinks,” said wine expert Jim Kowalyshyn.

Boxed wine has also shed its previously negative image. Janet Fuller from the Chicago Sun-Times writes, “Wine in a box never went the way of big hair and bad jeans. It’s only gotten better, experts say.” Boxed wine makes up only 6% of total wine sales but is the fastest growing segment in the industry, and some of the most up-scaled restaurants and wine consumers are taking part. Many positives come with purchasing boxed wine: there’s no possibility of cork taint, you get more for your money, and the wine lasts up to a month longer than traditionally bottled wine. A survey taken this past autumn showed that 44% of frequent wine-drinkers had recently purchased wine in a box. But will it ever truly take hold in the wine drinking world? "The only problem I have with it is, how do you serve it?" said Alpana Singh of Lettuce Entertain You. "Do you let it hang from the table?"