Senior Editor and wine writer Anne Valdespino lets Taste of Orange County in on a cool wine-to-go concept developed right in O.C.
Hollywood Bowl. Picnics. Camping. And our O.C. favorite, the Duffy boat. You want to bring wine along but it’s such a hassle. You need Stacked Wines. No, gentlemen, they’re not well endowed, just well packaged. The wine comes in four plastic glasses that resemble Riedel’s “O” tumblers. We offered sips of chardonnay and merlot to tasters in our office who drink wines at all price points. They pronounced them quaffable. The white was compared to chardonnay from Clos du Bois, the red to Blackstone merlot.
Too good to be true? Taste for yourself because they’re only $14.99. And who came up with this brilliant idea? A few folks from Orange County who totally get our lifestyle. That’s right, pals from business school at UC Irvine developed it as a class project and then decided there was a need in the market, says Jodi Wynn, marketing whiz of Stacked Wines. “We’re targeting to someone who spends $10 to $20 on a bottle. Someone who typically drinks a $50 bottle with dinner probably won’t purchase this wine to have with dinner but would purchase it to take on a picnic, on a boat, or to the Hollywood Bowl. It’s very situational.”
A standard pour is five ounces, each one of these Stacked Wine glasses contains just over six ounces. So it’s like taking a 750-milliliter bottle without the awkwardness of schlepping a big glass bottle and stemware. Wynn says the material is called Vinoware and that each glass has UV barriers and there’s no oxygen in the headspace to come in contact with the juice. “We put a lot of technology in to ensure that every single glass is fresh and preserves the flavor of the wine.”
Talk about situational. That means the singletons having dinner alone on a weeknight can enjoy it too: One and you’re done. And BTW, if you’re enjoying it at home, we found that this wine tastes even better in real stemware.—Anne Valdespino
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