Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/164544
Innovations: Truett Hurst is Making Wine More Accessible Launching a special project with Kent Shockey, Wine Category Manager for Safeway, Phil Hurst introduced a custom-packaged wine for the retail grocery chain under the moniker "The Wine with No Name" (SRP $15). This exclusive pioneering line is part of the evocative Wrapped Series that engages consumers on their own terms. The pull-off tissue package allows for more copy, recipes and information that a small back label cannot. The revolutionary package serves better than any shelf-talker to distinguish this wine from the hundreds of bottles it competes with on the shelf. "This wine screams bar-be-que," quips Hurst, who pulls off the wrap to demonstrate the wine's utilitarian, occasion-friendly (picnic! poolside!) nature. It's Hip to be Square. THE TASTING PANEL'S Publisher Meridith May shows off The Square. The Square, a 2012 Russian River Valley Chardonnay, comes in a bottle that can double as an olive oil container or flower vase. Taking cues from today's craft spirits movement, the package is 13 percent smaller than a 750-ml. bottle, and its unique shape allows retailers to fit more bottles on a shelf than the traditional shape, making it another stand-out. Paperboy, a red blend from Paso Robles, sports the world's first paper wine bottle, developed by Phil Hurst and designed by Kevin Shaw of Stranger and Stranger, a wine and spirits packaging design firm out of London.* "It's more insular than glass," Hurst tells THE TASTING PANEL. Welded to a Stelvin closure and made from recycled pulp cardboard, the packaging saves 7,000 pounds of Pulp non-fiction: Phil Hurst freight weight per truck, displays Paperboy, a red blend Hurst claims. It's 99 from Paso Robles, part of Truett percent recyclable—and Hurst's line of the world's first so much cooler than a paper wine bottles. box. "This is the most innovative idea to come across in a generation," says Jim Allen, Senior VP Fine Wine for Southern Wine & Spirits. *Today's trivia: Designer Kevin Shaw is the husband of Virginia Marie Lambrix. The Evocative Wrapped Bottles collection features wine in patent-pending resilient USA-made paper. The package will stand up in cold-boxes or in water—as in ice chests or buckets—for extended periods with no visual changes. 108 / the tasting panel / september 2013 TP0913_104-156.indd 108 8/22/13 10:31 PM