I like to think that I am an open minded fellow so I thought that I would taste some canned wine. Canned wine is a new development. The wine comes in 250 ml cans which are a third of standard 750 ml bottle.
I went down the local supermarket and selected a wine which I knew quite well, Terre di Faiano Primitivo Organic Italian red from Puglia, but in a bottle.
The price of the wine in a can was £3.79, but this has been temporarily discounted to £2.79, which meant that 750 ml would cost you £9.97. This compares to the cost of a glass-bottle of what appears to be the same wine at £9.99.
https://www.waitrose.com/ecom/shop/browse/groceries/beer_wine_and_spirits/wine/wine_in_a_can
However, what about the taste of the wine? The canned wine is non-vintage, it tastes good but has nowhere near the concentration and complexity of the bottled vintage wine. My wife and I enjoyed the wine with some beef stew but we both agreed that the canned wine had nowhere near the quality of its bottled sister. Also, it was nowhere near the value for money.
Terre di Faiano Primitivo Organic Red from the bottle is one of my favourite wines; I often buy a bottle when I visit the supermarket and I agree fully with its description. It is easily worth £10 a bottle and I enjoy this wine more than some bottles of pricier French and Italian wine. A recent vintage will age for a few years more, but I am always tempted to drink it straight away.
What are the advantages of tinned wine? For me there are few unless I am going on a rare picnic or more rarely travelling to a football match. At home, I am not going to drink wine from a tin or a can especially if it is of lower quality and at the same price as bottled wine.
There are advantages for the wine producers who can now sell inferior wine dressed up in fancy branded bottles at higher prices.
For the supermarkets there are the advantages of lower transport and storage costs. They also benefit from selling less costly wine, for them, at higher prices to the consumer so it is a nice little earner.
The wine suppliers claim that tin cans are better for the environment, but probably most of the discarded tins end up in land fill.
I have nothing against tinned products and I often eat tinned baked beans with my breakfast at a local café and enjoy them. I also enjoy a can of Guinness at home but prefer to go to a pub and have a pint drawn from a barrel.
Let's face it, drinking a classy vintage wine from the bottle, and sharing it with friends over a meal cannot be beaten. Tinned or canned wine has all the allure of baked beans and we must know its place.
