The Boxed Wine Trail

Boxed wines sales are up 32.4% again in 2008 amidst a tidal wave of bad economic news hasn’t gone unnoticed by wineries that are looking for new ways to market and sell their wines. After all, boxed wines – also known as bag-in-box and wine casks – offer packaging that dispenses affordable, fresh wine for up to six weeks or more, and pouring a glass is as easy as pushing a tap. And this year interesting, tasty boxed wines are cropping up all over the U.S. More and more wineries, big and small, are launching new wines in fun, bold, and creative packaging. A “Boxed Wine Trail” is emerging across the United States.

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10.11.01 – Ecommerce Dead?

A reoccurring question this Clarkesian year of 2001 asked by clients and wine industry acquaintances alike has been: “Is ecommerce dead?” The cratering of Wine.com and WineShopper.com, the relatively modest performance of other wine dot-coms to-date, and the collapse of the NASDAQ and business-to-consumer ecommerce ventures throughout 2000 and 2001 certainly give warrant to such a question. However, Tincknell & Tincknell’s answer has staunchly been and is: “NO!”

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The Roads Ahead

As clocks tick down to close the Gregorian calendar’s second millennium since the birth of Christ (debate on the true end aside), the wine industry has undergone profound changes in the last forty years, with the last ten the most dramatic. Prior to the nineties, the changes all had to do with the actual making of the wine. There has been a seismic change in perceptions about marketing, sales and distribution. The wine industry is still hobbled by post-Prohibition, three-tier distribution and regulations, but wine producers are finally embracing alternate and new methods of selling wine: the internet and direct marketing.

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