In Vino (in pouches) Veritas: pouch wine on the upswing

Millennials! You (us?) crazy kids are upending all kinds of industries, from soup to casual sex. And it’s looking like we’ll be the generation that pushes wine from snooty bottles, with their corks and rules, to the crazy world of easy-open pouches. Two new wine companies are skipping bottles altogether and going right to pouches with bright colors, QR codes and names like “Bonfire.” Radical!

Apparently, us crazy kids have grown up drinking from plastic and aren’t attached to stuffy old bottles, which makes us the perfect demographic to sell wines in boxes, aluminum cans and pouches to. And while the article doesn’t mention it, even the wine we have drank out of bottles is stuff like Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck at best, and Carlo Rossi at worst. So sure, who are we to laugh at the idea of wine in a pouch? And while we’re also the generation that’s turning consumerism into a game, the use of QR codes on the pouches is way less interesting than what the article completely dances around.

To wit: talk about how millennials just love convenience and taking their wine on the go either intentionally or accidentally misses the point completely that we like pouches so much because we can sneak them into parks, bars and movie theaters. Anyone who’s brought a bottle of wine into the movies with them has been the recipient of stares when you take it out and make the obvious “pop” sound of a cork being pulled. But ripping open a pouch is silent, thus making for much fewer judging eyes on you. We’re the cheapest generation: if you can make us a new way to sneak booze into an outdoor concert, we will be there to wave our dollars at you.