Ernest Gallo, 1909 - 2007

Ernest Gallo died yesterday at age 97.

E&J Gallo Winery is the largest wine company in the US, with annual US sales of 75,000,000 cases (2005 estimate, Wine Business Monthly). Among the wines in the Gallo family: Barefoot Cellars, Livingston Cellars, Red Bicyclette, Redwood Creek, Boone's Farm, Turning Leaf, Peter Vella (5 liter box), Carlo Rossi (available in a 4 liter box), Bella Sera, Black Swan (which also recently came out with a 3 liter box), and more.

From the Gallo website:

MODESTO, Calif. (March 6, 2007) – Ernest Gallo, who with his brother Julio, helped build the American wine industry and, in turn, achieved one of the greatest American business successes of the twentieth century, died today at his home in Modesto, California. He was 97. Julio passed away in 1993. Ernest had a younger brother, Joseph, who had his own business interests and passed away earlier this year.
. . .
The son of Italian immigrants, Ernest was born March 18, 1909, in Jackson, California, about 90 miles east of San Francisco in the Sierra Nevada foothills. His parents, Giuseppe (Joe) and Assunta (Susie), ran a boardinghouse for immigrant miners. It was not an easy life. After moving several times, in the early 1920s Joe bought a small farm in Modesto, California, about 70 miles east of San Francisco. Ernest and Julio, who was one year his junior, were required to come home directly from school to work in the fields, and they worked all weekend as well. It was here, in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, that the family’s grapes were harvested and loaded on rail cars for shipment to Chicago for sale to home winemakers, a small market dominated by immigrant communities in the big cities of the East and Midwest. By age 17, Ernest was already displaying his talent for salesmanship, traveling by himself to Chicago, where he was able to sell his family’s grapes and hold his own against older and wiser men. The experience instilled in him an independent, self-assertive nature and a fierce work ethic that remained with Ernest throughout his life.
. . .
The Gallo brothers pursued a dream few could ever envision. Their starting capital was limited to less than $6,000, with $5,000 of that borrowed from Ernest’s mother-in-law. In the first few years after Repeal in 1933, hundreds of companies were entering the wine business – more than 800 in California alone, some of them with extensive pre-Prohibition experience and access to millions of dollars. The brothers began without knowing how to make wine commercially. Ernest and Julio learned by reading old, pre-Prohibition pamphlets put out by the University of California and retrieved from the basement of the Modesto Public Library.
. . .
The sacrifice was often great. During the company’s infancy, the Gallo brothers often worked around the clock, sometimes 36 hours straight. In the first year, the winery produced 177,847 gallons of wine and earned its first profit. It became routine to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week. Although he cut back in recent years, Ernest remained active in the business on a daily basis until his death.

Gallo Public Relations

They founded the E.&J. Gallo Winery in 1933, at the end of Prohibition, when they were still mourning the murder-suicide deaths of their parents. Ernest and Julio rented a ramshackle building, and everybody in the family pitched in to make ordinary wine for 50 cents a gallon — half the going price. The Gallos made $30,000 the first year.

Winemaker Ernest Gallo dies at 97 - U.S. Business - MSNBC.com

technorati tags: box, wine, Gallo, Peter Vella

The Curse of Boxed Wine

For some wine drinkers, boxed wine is a blessing. Those who drink a glass a day appreciate how well it keeps after opening. Anyone putting on a large pool party appreciates the no-glass package, and the economy.

For some however, it's a curse, as J points out in Ashley's Big Secret Blog, excerpted here:

If you and a pal were to sit down for a nice evening of imbibing, you would pull out one bottle and drink it and, then, pull out another. Very likely you would go slowly on the second, as you have this, albeit imperfect, little voice in the back of your brain that warns you that opening too many bottles will lead to overload.

The inconvenient truth is that the benefit of the little voice telling you, “caution, caution” is completely defeated by the box. There is no way to tell how much of the box has been drunk in one sitting. So, without the little voice to warn you of impending doom, you drink and drink and it is very possible that you and your pal will not realize that too much has been consumed until you are slurring at each other or, dread, the box is gone!

I would like to propose a solution here.

Let’s publicize this problem. After all, many right-thinking people must be incensed by this irresponsible, unregulated and deceptive packaging. Perhaps someone could make a movie showing what can happen and suggesting, well, demanding would be better, that these insidious wine boxes have a gauge on them, like a gas gauge in a car to warn you of well, you know, that your $16 investment is about to pay you some unwelcome dividends.

Ashley's Big Secret Blog: An 'Inconvenient Truth' about Boxed Wine

It's true. And the fact is, I have lived in both those camps. I have friends whose aversion to boxed wine stems from the fact that it gives them no convenient stopping point, and they can't seem to put on the brakes.

The box will set you free. But whether that means free to stop at a glass or two, or free to keep going way beyond the point of immoderation, well, that's the question.

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine

Better Wine ,One Glass at a Time

In today's Portland State University Daily Vanguard, there's an article entitled Don't be afraid to explore the world of wine. Writer Matt Petrie's remarks about wine by the glass and box wines got me thinking once again about boxed wine in restaurant by-the-glass programs.

Wines by the glass bear some of the biggest markups a bar thinks they can get away with. A bottle that would retail for $10, for example, might sell for $6 by the glass. At about five pours per bottle, that's $30-a 300 percent markup. What's worse, usually the wines are crap. They might even be box wine.

Restaurants, and especially bars, assume that people who order wine by the glass just aren't that picky about what gets put in front of them as long as it's red or white (or, gasp, pink), so by-the-glass selections are usually where they stick the cheapest plonk they can find. Also, once a bottle is opened, the wine is exposed to air and begins to break down. A by-the-glass bottle sits around until it's gone. That means the wine you're drinking could have been sitting open for hours, or even days. You'll get better quality, and a slightly better price, if you find a friend or two to go in on a bottle.

Turning Red - Bar Guide

Heavens! Box wine? Say it isn't so!!!

Actually, the bag-in-box wine packaging is responsible for improving the quality of restaurant by-the-glass offerings, for two reasons.

First of all, after opening, the bag collapses as wine is dispensed. No air enters into the package and oxidation of the wine is prevented for many weeks after opening, unlike the opened by-the-glass bottle mentioned in the article.

Second, boxed wines are economical for several reasons. Of course, bulk buying is a better value; but bag-in-box packaging is also far cheaper to produce than a bottle and cork; and the bag-in-box wine is cheaper to ship and warehouse than bottled wine. (And, BTW, it costs less to recycle than glass). Because of the economy, a restaurant is able to offer a higher quality wine for the same price.

Take, for instance, FishEye Pinot Grigio, which gold medaled in the 2007 SF Chronicle Wine Competition (stacked up next to PGs selling for up to $25 per bottle). The FishEye PG in a 750ml bottle sells for around $8. The 3L box sells for $17 to $20. The restaurant can sell a glass of this stuff for the same price as some plonk in a bottle that retails for $4.25.

That's just the beginning. There are excellent imported French wines in 3L boxes that retail for $25 to $40 per box. In fact, DB Bistro on W 44th in NYC pours Dtour Chard which is only available in a 3L bag-in-"tube".

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, restaurant

The Packaging Industry Considers Boxed Wine

From the July 1, 2006 edition of Brand Packaging:

Consumers Not Boxed In By Wine Packaging
By Dana Dratch

With more premium offerings entering the box format, Americans are beginning to think outside the bottle.

In the past few years, a host of American wineries have joined a global trend in packaging their products in boxes.

In Sweden, 65 percent of wines sold are in the box format, according to ACNielsen data. In Australia, the figure is 52 percent. And in Norway, boxed wines make up 40 percent of all wines sold.

“The whole world is going toward convenience packaging,” says Chris Indelicato, CEO of Delicato Family Vineyards, which has been packaging some of its wines in boxes for three years.

And it’s not just for the sake of novelty.

“The marketing world is full of gimmicks,” says Ryan Sproule, president and founder of Black Box Wines. “This is one of those things where there are real tangible benefits.”

Such as, wine in a box that is opened keeps for a month, instead of a few days. It is also lighter to carry and ship, so it’s less expensive.

“It’s 40 percent lighter than its equivalent in a glass bottle,” notes Diana Pawlik, marketing director for the Centerra Wine Company, maker of the Trove brand. That means it’s less expensive to ship, less expensive for consumers and easier to carry to special events. Boxed wine is also becoming popular with small independent restaurants, because it’s easy to store and keeps so much longer.

And while no one is predicting the demise of the bottle (a wine tradition several thousand years in the making), more and more American winemakers are adding the box to their packaging menu.

Perception or reality?

Not so many years ago, wine connoisseurs looked down on alternate packaging formats. Their general consensus: if it comes in anything but glass with a cork, it must be a lesser quality.

Can today’s boxed wines overcome that prejudice? One fact that is changing public perception: good wine going into boxes.

“There’s been a renaissance with boxed wine of late—particularly at the premium level—as people figure out it’s just a container, you can put whatever you want in it,” says Charles Bieler, co-founder of Three Thieves, a U.S. pioneer of the box format.
Indeed, winemakers are putting more varieties into boxes—everything from chardonnay to merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and pinot noir.

Ryan Kukol, associate brand manager for the Select Brand of Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates, agrees that the time is ripe for premium boxed wine. “I think it’s becoming more accepted in the United States,” he says, likening the issue to a similar industry debate over screw caps. “It’s just a matter of time before the American consumer catches up.”

In Australia, where boxed wines account for about half the wine sold, the Hardy Wine Company claims more than a third of the boxed wine market. Three years ago, it launched Hardys Stamp in the United States and offered the same varieties in both bottles and boxes. According to Sally Osborne, marketing director for Pacific Wine Partners, maker of Hardys Stamp, there is still a “stigma” in the United States that the boxed wine industry is trying to overcome. As a result, she says, the company made a direct effort to communicate that the box had the same tine—the same quality of wine—in a box.

A premium look

As better wine is beginning to go in, the box itself is also getting a makeover. Today’s winemakers are using a variety of high quality inks and finishes on their boxes to signal that the product within is equal to its bottled brethren. Manufacturers are using more high-end printing processes, embossing, debossing, and foil stamping and higher end inks to give a more premium look to the boxes, which are looking and functioning more like traditional graphic-intensive wine labels these days.

Some brands are also starting to experiment with different sizes. While five liter and three liter boxes (the fastest growing segment of the market) were once the standard, 1.5-liter formats have also hit the market within the past few years.

Several winemakers are also tinkering with the shape of the box. Hardys Stamp, for example, elected to use a square box, rather than the rectangle typical for many of the five-liter boxes. “Consumer research said that they find that shape to be more premium,” says Osborne.

And DTour, which packages premium wine in a tube-like container, believes that the brand’s unique package may help avoid the stigma that most boxed wines face. “The nice thing about the tube is that it feels more like a wine bottle than a box, and I think that works in our favor,” says Sam Potts, a principal with Sam Potts Inc., the New York design company that created the packaging.

The company kept the design simple, and used an understated but warm color palette of cream, red and blue.

“The typography is very simple and clear. That’s based on the simplicity of the package itself,” says Potts. “This isn’t something that’s too fancy and unusual for the average wine buyer. At the same time, it’s not something that’s too cheap-looking for the higher end wine buyer.”

Hardys Stamp also wanted its packaging to stand out but wanted to position the brand as “very approachable wines made to be enjoyed when they’re young and fresh,” says Osborne. So the brand used hot bright pinks, purples, greens, yellows, reds and blues to indicate various varieties.

With the Wine Block, Kendall-Jackson also chose bright colors. Depending on the wine variety, the dominant color on the package might be mango, purple or fuchsia. It was “a nod to women” (who, industry stats show, do most of the purchasing), says Kukol. “And we had things in mind like the Apple computer and iPod—very youthful, appetizing colors.”

Black Box did just the opposite with its color scheme, using black as the primary color of its packaging. “Black is often associated with quality or luxury. That’s why I chose it,” says Sproule. “And I wanted something to stand out—all of the other boxes were white.”

Usability has also been a key point of difference, with consumers reporting that they love pressing a button on the package and instantly having a drink in hand. “There are a lot of convenience factors there,” says Sproule. “And we made it the same size as a milk carton so it would fit all the places a milk carton would. I’ve always been annoyed trying to get wine to fit in the fridge.”

Sproule notes that the Black Box package includes a description of the wine and the vintage date. “I tried to do all the things you would expect on a $12 bottle of wine,” he says.

Though he also points out that Black Box doesn’t hide from its packaging approach; it’s part of the company’s slogan: “Think inside the box.”

“Lots of wines are apologetic about being in a box,” he says. “We’re in a box, and we’re proud of it.”

Who drinks boxed wines?

Typical boxed wine drinkers range from the mid 20s to mid 50s and they have good salaries and good educations, according to several vintners.

The premium three-liter buyers are “much closer to the profile of a 750 ml (bottle) buyer,” says Danny Brager, vice president of client service for the beverage alcohol team at AC Nielsen, which has studied sales and buying habits in the category.

And there seems to be a marked difference between the five-liter purchaser, which declined five percent in sales volume last year, and who is buying three liters, which increased in sales volume 70 percent according to ACNielsen reports.

Three-liter buyers “tended to be younger, more affluent more educated,” Brager says. “Basically, to me, a different kind of consumer.”

“The typical consumer is very much the 750 ml (bottle) premium wine consumer,” says Pacific Wine Partner’s Osborne, adding that buyers are educated with a degree of wine knowledge. “I think we see them in their mid-30s to mid-50s. We know that women are buying the majority of wine, and women are doing the majority of grocery shopping. But [consumption of the product] doesn’t seem to be leaning male or female.”

For the Wine Block, drinkers tend to be 21 and on up to their mid-30s, according to Kukol. “[They are] really interested in discovering wine and becoming interested in wine,” he says. “Not as resistant to change. Don’t have any of the stigmas attached to boxed wine that older consumers might. Generally more educated.”

In fact, with the current generation of boxed wines, consumer education is a big piece of the marketing plan for many winemakers.

When Black Box launched three years ago, word of mouth was one of the most important components of the company’s marketing effort. “I started out only selling to shops that had clerks on the floor,” says Sproule. “I was afraid if I put it in a grocery store, it would just die. There was lots of hand selling the first year or so.”
One point that’s helping many boxed brands: growing acceptance of wine as an everyday staple.

“A nice package, endorsed by people used to quality, sends the message that it’s OK,” says Daniel Johnnes, who along with Daniel Boulud and Dominique Lafon, formed the trio behind DTour. “Everyday consumption, not a special occasion, that’s the idea of the package.”

Brand Packaging: The only publication focused on the marketing impact of packaging; by Stagnito Communications, Inc.

Related Tags: box, boxed, cask, wine

Corbett Canyon Merlot 3 Liter Box

The first California Merlot on the list of bag-in-box wines:

Corbett Canyon Merlot
Corbett Canyon Vineyards (The Wine Group)
California
3 liter box, vintage dated
Also available in bottle
About $10 - $15

Our Merlot is medium bodied with deep blackberry aromas and a soft, satisfying finish. Enjoy its smooth flavors with grilled pork chops, braised lamb and roast chicken.

Corbett Canyon Vineyards: Merlot

Reviews in the press:

Carol Emert, December 4, 2003, San Francisco Chronicle

The 2001 Corbett Canyon California Merlot ($10) is exceptionally good for the price. It displays a cherry-and-cigar nose along with tasty cherry, plum and cranberry on the palate. The long finish combines bright plum with caramel.

Box wine is getting better all the time

Mike Dunne, December 10, 2003, Sacramento Bee

Corbett Canyon 2001 California Premium Wine Cask Merlot ($10): Yep, $10. That works out to $2.50 a bottle. At that price, you can't expect a blockbuster merlot, but you do get a very drinkable take on the varietal -- bright, young and juicy, with fair-enough suggestions of merlot's frequent plumlike fruit and mint. I found it just as plummy, herbal and spicy on Nov. 22 as it was when I first tasted it from the same box on Oct. 1. I also compared the same wine in a bottle Nov. 22 and found no significant difference.

Dunne on wine: Winemakers think inside the box

Carol Emert, January 6, 2005, San Francisco Chronicle

The 2002 Corbett Canyon California Merlot ($10) is fruity and complex with a nose of cherry, green olive and hickory smoke with complementing flavors of dried cranberry, dried cherry, pomegranate and smoked meat. There is plenty going on in this wine -- particularly impressive at the equivalent of $2.50 a bottle.

A bevy of boxes have room inside for value, flavor

Chris Sherman, July 27, 2005, St Petersburg Times

Merlot, Corbett Canyon, California, 2003: Strong blackberry jam nose with berries and cherries on the palate but flat, thin and too acidic. $9.49

Taste: Uncorked: Think inside the box

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, Corbett Canyon, Merlot, review

South Florida Boaters Love Boxed Wine

Ryan Sproule of Black Box Wines knows that boaters love boxed wine. The Miami New Times blog reports that boaters make south Florida the second biggest market for Black Box Wines.

February 20, 2007
Wine in a Box

Ryan Sproulee sauntered into the New Times office Friday afternoon, yet another vendor in town for the boat show.

The chipper, silver haired man produced three black milk-carton sized boxes containing the equivalent of 12 bottles of wine –the finest box wine, Sproulee conteded, in the country.

Sproulee began his venture in 2003, selling high-end bulk wine in vacu-sealed bladders. The wine would stay fresh for up to four months after opening and, at $22 dollars a box, it worked out to roughly $5.50 a bottle. Today his product, “Black Box Wines, ranks number seventeen in wine sales nationwide.

The second largest market, outside of northern California, is South Florida. The reason? Mainly boaters. “They just love the stuff,” Sproulee giggled, as he shot a foamy stream of decidedly drinkable Cabernet into a small glass. “It’s just a major part of the culture… boating and drinking.” The boxes, he says, are selling like hot cakes.

So the next time you’re out on the water and some yacht comes careening towards you –keep a lookour for that little black box. It may not help much with the wreck, but it’ll sure get you drunk while you wait for the Coast Guard. –Calvin Godfrey

miaminewtimes.com Riptide » Wine in a Box

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, Black Box

FishEye Campaign Has Begun

The FishEye TV ad campaign has begun. I've missed it so far. I may have to watch one of those TV shows I've never even seen before.

Premium boxed wine maker starts $4.5 million ad campaign
East Bay Business Times
February 26, 2007
by Chris Rauber

Fisheye Wines, a unit of the Wine Group specializing in wines packaged in 3 liter casks, rolled out a $4.5 million national TV ad campaign on Oscar night, aimed at 25- to 40-year-old wine drinkers.

The campaign premiered last week, airing during E! Channel's Academy Awards' Red Carpet shows on Sunday and on ABC's Grey's Anatomy and Boston Legal earlier in the week, said David Kase, president of San Francisco-based Kase Media Solutions, which plans for and purchases media time and space for its clients.

It features "hip" 30-second spots targeting young wine drinkers. The ads will run throughout the first half of the year on prime-time first-run episodes of ABC's Desperate Housewives, Lost, Grey's Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters and Boston Legal.

The new ads are meant to reinforce the growing popularity of both Fisheye Wines and "premium cask" or boxed packaging, say officials at Fisheye and its marketing partners. AC Nielsen data, for example, shows the category is the fastest growing segment of the wine business, up 44 percent over the past year, compared to just 3 percent growth in overall table wine sales.

According to Fisheye, each of its three-liter casks -- which are cardboard packages holding a collapsible bag holding the wine -- store the equivalent of four bottles of wine in a package that fits neatly into a refrigerator. That's slightly less than other boxed wines in 5-liter containers, which hold the equivalent of seven bottles. "Clearly the focus is, as the tag line says, 'Better wine, better idea,' " said John Randazzo, president of San Francisco's B.A.R.C. Communications, the marketing agency that developed the campaign, noting that "casks" sounds better than "boxes" when describing the product, and that Fisheye came to his agency looking for a way to link its packaging to the industry's traditional casks.

The Wine Group, based in San Francisco, is one of the nation's largest wine producers -- it sold about 42 million cases in 2005, according to Wine Business Monthly. Fisheye's brands include six premium vintage-dated varietals -- shiraz, chardonnay, merlot and cabernet sauvignon, sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio. Its Fisheye 2005 pinot grigio in a 3-liter cask was recently awarded a Gold Medal at the 2007 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition.

Fisheye used B.A.R.C. to produce computer-enhanced imagery linking Fisheyes' contemporary-looking cardboard casks with the heavy-duty wooden casks used for centuries to store fine wines. One spot opens on a painting in the William Hogarth tradition, depicting 18th century revelers tapping into a cask of wine. Using stop-motion animation, the Hogarth era characters come alive and move into a modern-day pop art gathering.

"As screw caps replace corks, wine aficionados are increasingly looking for alternative ways to keep wine fresh longer," Alan Blavins, B.A.R.C.'s creative director, said in a statement. "Smarter-designed casks can maintain optimal taste for as long as six weeks. This campaign helps convey both the quality inside the cask and the quality of the cask itself."

Rauber is a reporter for the San Francisco Business Times.

Premium boxed wine maker starts $4.5 million ad campaign - East Bay Business Times:

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, FishEye, TV, advertising