Packaging Sells or Fools? A Good $4 Pinot Grigio Pretends to Be Worth More.

No, that is not perfume there on the right. But in the way-overcrowded world of package goods, packaging does count for plenty. You’ll find one example after another of packaging bravos (eg, Minute Maid) and blow-ups (Tropicana). So when I’m shopping a mid-range supermarket and I run across a bottle of Italian pinot grigio that looks like Voga’s, I’m automatically suspicious that this wine is dressed-up drabble.

Still, we’re currently testing cheap whites so the Pinot Grigio from Voga ICRF in Calmasino, Italy, “fell” into the shopping cart.

One nutshell description: The packaging of Voga Pinot Grigio 2004 caught our attention. Unlike virtually every other wine bottle on the shelf, Voga’s 2004 bottle is a perfect cylinder, with a large vertical logo imprinted on the bottle. Even the closure, which is a bottle neck that accepts a standard cork, is camouflaged by a black plastic cover that matches the diameter of the bottle to extend the cylindrical appearance.

I gotta inform you that the Voga website continues the hype...molto artistico, miei amici. Do visit because I was riveted by the flashy flash with semi-nude people and the home page’s suggestive photo. What do you think?

Today’s Signalwriter™ marketing opinion? The taste of Voga Pinot Grigio doesn’t meet expectation. So it’s a cheap lesson in over-hyping (the store discounted the already low price by 10%), a sort of alcoholic “Where’s the beef?” If anyone’s old enough to remember that campaign.

This interesting and quite comfortable-feeling bottle also presents today’s marketing lesson. Sizzle may sell the steak one time, but a very ordinary vin is no way to gain a repeat stakeholder base. Così spiacente, Voga.

Sell the Sizzle: When the "Excellent Cork" is Better than the Wine...

More news by accident from Spain: I have seen the future (of wine bottles, at least) and it’s a cherry-red Excellent Cork.

Straight out of a bottle of Iberian red – see below – I took out this plug of polímero termoplástico as easy as pie. It’s produced in Alicante, Spain by the eponymous company. Its website is worth a look-see, even if you can’t read Español, because it gets its message across easily.

These guys are in the plastic stopper business and its probably a better option, cost-wise, than glass stoppers. A Spanish wine-blogger, Benito Otrero, has posted about these synthetic stoppers here.

I am sorry to tell you the wine that this Excellent Cork came out of is a bottle of Chapillon Cuvee Harmonie circa 2006 – also Spanish. And therein lies the problem: This is [a] not a terribly good-tasting blend (90% petit verdot and 10% tannat) despite its “90” score from The Wine Advocate. The estate has its own blog and since I’ve read this review on the Internet it must be true. Right.

Also [b], the bottle comes with an immediate nose that says SKUNK big time. I do not know if it is the wine or the stopper. And the plonk doesn’t really improve with breathing. So…you can pick up this wine but really, only for the terrific new corking mechanism.

The Excellent Cork you gotta see!