Fall!! The signs are all around us. The invigoratingly crisp air, droves of pumpkin pickers, the smell of freshly baked cider donuts, tractors carrying loads of just harvested apples and wine grapes. True, you may have to battle traffic and crowds, but if you’re lucky enough to find an open lane and parking spot, the reward will be worth your efforts. I can’t think of too many things better than sipping a glass of red wine next to a fire pit on our front patio while listening to live music and watching the sun set behind the LI Sound. Fall on the North Fork – I live for you!

We’re busy in the tasting rooms but even busier behind the scenes. Harvest is well underway. So far this season our winery has accepted and processed over 900 tons of grapes which will result in about 60,000 cases of finished wine. 750 more tons are expected over the next 3 weeks. It looks like another good year and the winery will be filled to capacity again. Our whites and rosés are either undergoing primary fermentation or have just completed it (like our Pinot Blanc) and are now resting in storage tanks for maturation and natural clarification purposes. Thanks to the past few days of sun and seasonably warm temps, our red grapes have now reach sufficient ripeness for picking. With the favorable forecast ahead, though, we’re going to let them hang a bit longer for further development of sugars and flavors. We’ll likely start harvesting towards the end of next week and be all wrapped up by the following. Sounds quick, but harvest on Long Island is actually an intense two month long period and so when winery operations jumps from 10 to 20 hour work days, we feel every bit of those two months. I for one am eager to move from the picking phase to the tasting phase. 

As teased in my previous post, the topic that I’ll dive into this month is…wait for it…alterative packaging! What is it? How much does it cost? Does it make sense for us? And finally, does it make sense for you, the consumer?

There’s been a lot in the press lately about the “democratization” of wine. Once considered a luxury for the older, snobby elite with price tags to match, a contingent of modern day producers, marketers and retailers is actively pushing to make wine as a category more casual and approachable. Brands like Barefoot and Cupcake are seeing huge success with cutesy names, low price tags and simple, palate-pleasing wines. Bloggers like Jon Thorsen of Reverse Wine Snob and Marissa Ross of Wine all the Time are revolting against exclusive, high end wines and the snootiness that surrounds them by touting less expensive picks and explaining them in a way that’s…and this is revolutionary part…fun! Costco is the #1 buyer of wine in America according to Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary. Costco! The big box retailer with a focus on value and serving the masses. Because of these guys and others, wine is becoming easier to access and understand, and I’m all for it.
Another element of the democratization of wine is making it more convenient, and that’s where alternative packaging comes in. In the wine world, alternative packaging is the term used for any container other than the traditional, age old standard glass bottle. For us, that means boxes and kegs.

When I started at Lieb Cellars in 2013, the GM at the time had dabbled a bit in alternative packaging but never fully committed. Lieb was packaging its Lieb reserve and Bridge Lane wines in glass bottles and for some of the SKU’s, steel kegs. The kegs were being sold to restaurants only for use in their wine draught systems. I blissfully found fellow supporters of alternative packaging in our new CEO and in our winemaker, so I took their blessing and ran with it. Today, we leave our Lieb wines alone. With limited production potential it didn’t make sense to be putting those wines in kegs or selling them at a discount. But with Bridge Lane, we have some fun. Each Bridge Lane wine is packaged in 750ml bottles (if we must), 3L box (yay!) and 20L one-way, recyclable kegs (WOO HOO!), which we still sell to restaurants but also direct to consumers for parties and weddings.

The convenience factor is definitely there. The boxes hold the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine and are light-weight, portable and non-breakable. The kegs hold 26 bottles worth of wine and eliminate a ton of space, weight and garbage. Easy to transport and serve, and also easy on the wallet. While our bottles of Bridge Lane retail for $15, the box is $40 (33% savings) and the kegs are $240 (38% savings). $40 may sound like a lot for box wine but considering the wine is not your standard sweet, tasteless crap that we’ve all tried and hated but our dry, hand-crafted, “excellent and highly recommended” (reversewinesnob.com, “The Best Box Wines,” Nov 2014) wines, then I’d say $10/bottle equates to incredible value. Especially considering what some of our neighbors are charging for wines of comparable quality.

The reason we can charge less for the wine, of course, is because the packaging (or “dry goods” – remember this term!?) costs less. It allows us to offer our wines as a better value and in turn, reach a wider audience. Naysayers to the democratization trend say that by making wine more accessible, it loses its cache, its romance, and worse, it fosters an environment that favors big corporate wine companies producing homogenous swill over us, the little producer who makes distinctive, kick-ass wines.

My question is, why can’t it be both? If we’ve figured out a way to make great wine more accessible without lowering our quality standards (not one ounce!), can you blame us? Good AND cheap? I say why the hell not! Last time I checked offering higher quality at a lower cost is a damn good thing.

As for whether alternative packaging makes sense for you, well that all depends on how and why you consume wine. If you’re someone who seeks convenience and value and aren’t afraid to go against the grain, then I say GET ON BOARD! If, however, you’re the type of person who has dollars to burn and buys wine for the prestige and image rather than what’s on the inside, then by all means, keep ordering your overpriced Burgundy. More box wine for me!

Final note: A neighbor of mine is the stuffy elitist type. Always wearing a brand and always name dropping. He (of course) loves rosé. But this summer, when I asked if he had tried our box rosé, he looked at me as if the notion was an affront to his dignity and flippantly responded, “I ONLY drink Provence rosé…from a bottle.” A month or so later I spotted him in our tasting room, sunglasses on and cable knit sweater around his neck, buying a KEG of our Bridge Lane Rose which was likely for his wife’s upcoming birthday party. I never told him I saw him and he never told me he bought one, but I smile knowing he either had a change of heart or left the wine-buying decision that day to his lovely, MUCH smarter wife.

Next month harvest will be long over and we’ll be in the throes of preparing for our holiday push. In truth, we didn’t go a great job of capitalizing on the holiday spending season last year. Next blog I’ll explore what we’re going to do differently this year.

Til then, cheers! (me with a glass of 2013 Red Blend BOX wine)
Ami Opisso
General Manager & Certified Sommelier, Lieb Cellars