Indiana winery decides to package their wine in aluminium cans

Going against the conventional wisdom of putting premium wines in bottles only, Indiana’s Mallow Run Winery has decided to launch a special edition wine in aluminium cans. The idea was conceived keeping this year’s one-hundredth running of the Indianapolis 500 in mind.

Mallow Run Winery Marketing Director Sarah Shadday said, “You can’t take glass to the (Indianapolis 500), so it’s allowing our wine drinkers in Indiana to still be able to enjoy some wine where glass may not be allowed, be it at the pool or on the lake or on the beach.”

Due to safety reasons glass bottles are totally banned at the track, but carrying aluminium cans is commonplace at the race, held forty minutes north of the winery.

“When you’re out and about and trying to pack a cooler or have a picnic, glass wine bottles can be kind of clunky. You have to keep it protected, you have to have a corkscrew, you have to have glasses,” Shadday said. “Canning it allows it to be a little more convenient.”

Mallow Run first got into the aluminium can business last year when they began offering a hard cider. Success with the sale of the cider in a more versatile container gave them the idea to try offering a wine in it.

“In the last one or two years, there’s been this very slow-burning trend of canning wines. It doesn’t include the Midwest yet, but it’s really coming up on the West Coast,” she said. “We thought, why not try it?”

Packaging wine in aluminium cans offers distinct advantages over the usual glass packaging. Apart from being a more sustainable alternative, aluminium ensures top barrier quality, which prolongs the shelf life of the wine or beer.

According to Shadday, the acceptance of wine packaged in aluminium cans is also supposed to reasonably high.

“I’d say 99 per cent of people thought it was awesome,” she said. “One of the things about Indiana is we don’t have a long-established wine culture. In Europe, they’ve been doing the same thing for hundreds of years, and how dare you change things. But the Midwest is very receptive to new things and experiments. We’re not a snooty part of wine country.”

The Indiana winery is strongly considering continuing experimentation with packaging their wine in aluminium, Shadday indicated.