The Bag-in-box is back!

Commentators and critics in the world of wine, and wine business, have been predicting the demise (or decline) of the 75cl glass bottle for some time now.

Let’s face it, it is strange that we still drink wine from a vessel that represents the approximate lung capacity of the mediaeval glass blower’s lungs.

75cl may be about right for two people having dinner together on a weekend, but what when you only want a glass, or you want a red and your partner wants a white? What if you only take a glass or two out of a bottle, and travel / dinner / theatre / diet plans mean that the next occasion when you will need another glassful at home is a whole week later?

Many solutions have been presented, and all have found a small place in the market – the airline bottle, the half bottle, the single plastic glass with a peel-back lid – but nothing has taken off yet.

One of the obvious answers has been with us for 30 years – the Bag-in-Box.

So why hasn’t this format made inroads into the UK wine market? (in fact its share started to decline when the ‘half price promotion’ became a thing)

The answer is that our prior associations with Bag-in-box in the UK have been with lowest common denominator generic wines of only average quality.

But two things have changed.

One is that in Scandinavia, in a market that doesn’t allow price promotions, a 4 bottle wine box is typically sold at a decent discount to the regular price per bottle. So they are enormously popular. Around 60% of all volume sold in Sweden is in BIB.

And this means that much more premium producers have been encouraged to look at the BIB sector, and they have shown that good wine tastes great in a BIB.

Secondly, technology has made it easier and easier to physically handle the shipping and filling of BIBs on a small scale.

No longer does a winemaker have to fill a 24,000 litre steel tanker with their precious wine, and wave goodbye while it makes its way to some wine factory in Germany or Newcastle, where hundreds of wines a week are pushed through the system and given the same identikit, safety first treatment.

Now, small, often organic, producers who have loving laboured over small batches of delicious wine can fill much smaller vessels that sit nicely on a pallet, and can be shipped on the normal wine transport network. They can be sent to a fellow winemaker in a small winery in the UK, who understands each individual wine, and tailors the filtration regime to the absolute minimum necessary, and uses as little sulphur as strictly necessary, to respect the lower sulphur levels used by organic producers.

About six months ago, I was approached by four siblings from the Lea family of Suffolk, Oliver, Tom, Alex and Rebecca (who is now a ‘Roberts’). They had a dream that they could be the ones to open up the Premium BIB market in the UK, had founded The BIB Wine Company, and were looking for a founding partner to help find producers to work with, and select the wines.

Six months later, and after several trips to European wine fairs, organic wine events and visits to individual growers, we have pulled together a range of 12 wines to launch this month, including a wine of my own – Bee Pink – made with the help of Jean-Marc Lafage in the Roussillon – which I also sell in bottle on http://www.domaineofthebee.com (new vintage arriving in May).

What have we learned?

1. Winemakers are really interested to supply us – it is a new route to market, and a premium one (we pay WAY higher prices than the standard ‘vrac’ price.)
2. Winemakers like having their label on the box, and being associated with the other growers in the range.
3. Every wine gets a lot of input from the winemaker as to how they would like it to be handled.
4. Now that we have packed them, we know that good wines DO taste great from a BIB!
5. There is a big market out there of engaged wine drinkers easily persuadable about the convenience, and the environmental benefits of BIB.
6. The commentators and critics are keen to write about this revolution in Bag-in-Box quality.

Our London launch is this week (26th April). We are nearly at capacity, but if anyone interested in coming along reads this, drop me a line at justin@thehivewine.com, and I will see if we can squeeze you in.

And sales on the website go live in a matter of days. For now, it is just informational, but to sign up to learn more, have a look here – https://www.bibwine.co.uk/

Join the revolution!