There is a local restaurant conglomerate that has an unoaked Hess Chardonnay from keg and I’ve tried a glass a few times during a happy hour and it was ok. Then I had it a couple of weeks ago and thought it tasted flat. Is that possible?
Keg wines have their own set of packaging issues. We’ve done a couple different wines, whites and reds, and the gas mix really effects how it pours. The recommended mix is the “Guinness Gas” a Nitrogen/CO2 blend, that helps keep things from getting too spritzy, especially for reds, but I think it can leave whites a bit flat as you get to the bottom part of the keg.
Kegs, like Bags, are designed to get to the market fast and rotate quickly, but due to the nature of the container, you don’t have to fight the same oxidation issues. With kegs, more tannic/extracted reds and barrel aged whites pick up a more metallic feel, to me at least, and higher CO2 makes it that more aggressive in the mouth.
Regards,
Brian Maloney
DeLoach Vineyards and Buena Vista Winery
I think there is no technical reason why boxed wine cannot be as good as basic bottled wine, but there are problems with it: 1, it is just too much wine…the same wine, day in, day out. As others have said: B-O-R-I-N-G. 2, I try to reduce the use of plastic in my life due to carcinogens. Plastics have a lot of additives to them to make them, well, ‘plastic’. Best to avoid these in life, as the jury is still out (interesting how cancer deaths have increased along with the invention of modern plastic).