Pushing the packaging envelope

[slbunge]

It seems as if you and Bonny Doon are willing to embrace new technology for wine packaging as seen with your long commitment to synthetic cork and the more recent screw tops.

I am wondering if you are thinking about (or could be cajoled into) packaging Big House Red in the boxed format. Not only would it save us all from lugging cases of bottles away from the liquor store, but it seems as if it is a nice format for dispensing wines since there is minimal oxygen uptake on a pour (at least wines that aren't created with cellaring in mind). Perhaps the stigma of the box is just too much for the distributors and sellers of your wines. Or possibly tooling up to fill and seal bags is prohibitively expensive.

As a side note, weirdos like me use the mylar bags as lightweight water bags while camping and if Big House Red were initially inside, I wouldn't have to figure out how to secretly give Franzia to all my friends so I can have the bag.

[Randall Grahm]

Dear Slbunge,

I am so there, you have no idea. We have recently found a company that has developed a new technology that has greatly improved the shelf-life of the so-called bag-in-the-box, essentially making it equivalent to a bottle, or so they claim. I am just girding my marketing loins, as it were, to prepare to pounce into the market and to take no prisoners. (I think that this combatative imagery must come from the incipient travesty of the election of the Governator.) There are of course some serious marketing challenges to the introduction of a relatively expensive wine in a box, but I am confident that we will overcome them. Stay dooned. RG.