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WI n EM ak I n G and at least a few use 15.5-gallon beer pony kegs. Other wineries have taken another ap- proach, supplying wine in a collapsible bladder; Boisset's DeLoach and Raymond brands hide a bag of red wine inside an or- namental wooden cask. (See "Pushing the Packaging Envelope," November 2009.) Since Wines & Vines last covered the subject in depth in the May 2007, sales of Highlights • Keg wines are gaining popularity with restaurants and bars because they prom- ise environmental, economic and quality benefits. • Wine to go into kegs must be clean, with no reductive or oxidative ele- ments or tartrates. Ideally should be filtered. • Kegs are short-term containers—best for no more than three months, typically. wine on tap seem to have grown, especial- ly in wine regions like Northern Califor- nia and Oregon. Ironically, one of the big- gest adopters of wine keg service is Two Urban Licks in Atlanta, which dispenses 42 wines from pony kegs by gravity. Most suppliers and bars use inert gas to provide the pressure; it can't be carbon di- oxide, which would carbonate the wine. Ar- gon seems to be best, but nitrogen is more readily available and cheaper by volume. In Napa Valley, a number of restau- rants have experimented or adopted the approach: The Wine Spectator Restau- rant at the Culinary Institute of America, Silverado Brewing Co., Cuvée (which had six wines on tap), Oxbow Wine Merchant and, most recently, Fish Story, the local outpost of the Lark Creek Group. Restaurants are motivated by offering interesting, hard-to-find wine at reasonable prices, not by selling plain, cheap wine. Silvertap One of the most ambitious keg wine producers is Free Flow Wines, which produces the Silvertap brand. It is based in Sonoma County and grows and sources sustainably farmed and organic grapes in some of California's top vineyard sites. "The issues are finding producers who can properly tap off tanks to fill a keg and then deliver it in stable condition." —Peter Granoff, Oxbow Wine & Cheese Merchant Silvertap Wines' founders and principals include Dan Donahoe, who has been in the wine business 20 years and also owns Teira Wines. Jordan Kivelstadt, director of production, worked at The Donum Estate and owns Qualia Wines, which uses grapes from his family's Kivelstadt Vineyard. Di- rector of operations Greg Quinn has spent the past two decades working and studying wine within the restaurant business. Restaurants in Northern California and elsewhere are pouring the wines, which come in all popular varieties. Jordan Kivelstadt says they founded the company in July 2009. "Glass bottles don't Quality & Care. The Cork Supply TM Way Make our competitive advantage yours. Our award-winning Innocork® TCA-removal technology redefines what quality means at the top of your bottle. Exclusively from Cork Supply, Innocork is a scientific breakthrough assuring you the superior quality, performance & ecological advantages of natural cork & virtually eliminating the risk of cork taint. Top-of-the-Bottle Experts Visit corksupply.com & learn how Innocork — like our best-in-class < 1.5ng/L Quality Standard for releasable TCA — is one of many ways Cork Supply's passion for care & quality assures our competitive advantage is yours. .com ph 707.746.0353 | fx 707.746.7471 Cork Supply | Innocork | Wines and Vines : 1/2 Page Horizontal ad (7 5/8" X 4 7/8 " ) | March 2011 IssueWines & Vines MARCH 2011 35