The Wall Street Journal - 17.08.2019 - 18.08.2019

D6| Saturday/Sunday, August 17 - 18, 2019 ** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.**

2019. Another fizzy favorite, the House Wine
      Brut Bubbles, was almost as good as the Fricos
      if a bit more neutral in flavor.
      I tasted every wine both straight from the
      can and from a glass (save for that ballpark
      rosé), and while some held up better from the
      can than others, all were better from a glass.
      Drinking straight from the can not only meant
      forsaking aromas but also savoring a first
      taste of can, not wine. When the wine was
      lousy the can only amplified its worst attri-
      butes in the manner of a tinny loudspeaker.
      And there are some really, really bad wines in
      cans. Some of the worst I tasted came in cute
      packaging, including the Oceans Away Spar-
      kling Pineapple Wine that tasted like pineap-
      ple juice left over from the year before; the
      Babe Rosé (all marketing, no wine); and the
      truly execrable Crazy Legs wines, a Sauvignon
      Blanc and a Red Blend, both infused with hops.
      Prices didn’t correlate with can size any
      more than they did with quality. I paid $7 for a
      375 ml can and as little as $3 for the same
      size. The Sofia Blanc de Blancs Mini was one
      of the worst wines in my tasting—flat and
      tinny—but it cost $4 for a tiny 187 ml can.
      In a novel format, a bad wine can have an
      outsize impact. “I am concerned that if con-
      sumers have a poor first experience with
      canned wine they will blame the can as op-
      posed to the wine put into the can,” said Mr.
      Harms. Might quality issues ultimately rele-
      gate canned wine to a footnote in wine history,
      sending wine drinkers back to the bottle or
      the box? Only time will tell. In the meantime, I
      have a few favorites I’d happily pop open at a
      tennis match, the beach or even on my own
      front porch.

Email Lettie at [email protected].

to ensure that the wine is compatible with
the can lining. Mr. Wilkinson, like all the
canned-wine producers I spoke with, works
with Ball Corporation, the largest beverage-
can producer in the world. A canned wine
also requires a bit of liquid nitrogen before
the can is closed. “This is what keeps the
wine fresh and the can hard,” explained
Mr. Wilkinson.
A Colorado-based Ball Corporation
spokesperson confirmed both the proprie-
tary nature of the can lining and the fact that
winemakers must send 64 ounces of any
wine destined for cans to test it for struc-
tural compatibility—i.e., how the wine af-
fects the structure of the can and how likely
the liner is to stand up to corrosion. (The
company tests all beverages slated to go into
their cans, including soft drinks.)
Consumers have their own adjustments to
make when considering canned wines. Even
though canned-wine makers happily tout all
the leisure activities their wines are suited
to, and 375-ml wine cans are just slightly
larger than the standard can of beer you
might knock back on a hot day, these wines
aren’t made for guzzling. A can of beer might
be 5% alcohol, while a can of wine might be
twice that number or more. Some producers
have therefore opted for cans of a smaller
size—187 ml or 250 ml.
Whatever the size, consuming straight from
the can thwarts one of the great pleasures of

Continued from page D1

Crack Open a

Grapey One

When the game is hours long, the wine

you drink afterward should revive and

refresh. The Underwood Rosé Bubbles does

both. It's juicy and bright—a pleasurable

if far from profound drink.

A Round of Golf

Underwood Rosé Bubbles

(375 ml)$6

Horse shows go on all day, so the best wine is

perky and low-alcohol. This can of fizzy wine

made in Italy by two Americans (Bobby Stuckey

and Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson) has zip and,

at just 10% alcohol, won’t put you to sleep.

An old-fashioned buttery California Chardonnay

in a 375 ml can is a boon companion to an

old-fashioned pursuit like slow-pitch softball.

The game takes a little longer to finish than

some, and so does this rich white.

Slow-Pitch Softball

2017 Buttercream Chardonnay

(375 ml)$6

Horse Show

Frico Frizzante by Scarpetta

(250 ml)$5

As the sun sets over the bow of the boat, break

open a can of a lithe and lively rosé that’s about

the same color as the sky. “Nomikai” means

“drinking party” in Japanese, but the can is small

(187 ml) so definitely sized for a party of one.

Sunset Sail

Nomikai California Rosé Fizzy

(187 ml)$5

Mallet in one hand, can of wine in the other—

why not? This flower-festooned can of

Pinot Grigio is as pretty and sprightly as

a freshly rolled croquet lawn, with citrus and,

yes, appropriately grassy notes.

Croquet Match

2017 Crafters Union Pinot Grigio

(375 ml)$6

wine: its aroma. Unlike the wide mouth of a

wine glass, a can’s small opening isn’t made

for sniffing; any scent of flowers, fruits or for-

est floor will be trapped in the can. Some pro-

ducers compensate by adding sugar. As Hal

Landvoigt, director of winemaking for Precept

Wine explained, “A little residual sugar boosts

that aromatic experience and tricks your brain

into thinking you have aromatics.”

While wine drinkers are regularly coun-

seled never to drink white wines too cold or

red wines too warm, temperature-related ad-

vice seems immaterial to canned-wine fans.

Drinkers of cans like them cold—really cold—

whether rosé, white or red. Temperature was

the chief reason Jordan Salcito, the New York-

based creator of the Ramona Organic Wine

Spritzes, chose the slim 250 ml size for her

white-wine-and-citrus-juice drinks, sort of like

sophisticated wine coolers. “I didn’t want the

can to get warm in your hand while you’re

drinking it,” she said. The smaller the can, the

shorter the sipping time.

Ms. Salcito’s Ramona Ruby Grapefruit

Wine Spritz was one of my favorites among

the 30 or so cans I purchased for tasting

over a week spent drinking wine exclusively

from cans. (See “Can Do,” above, for the list

of recommended wine-and-summer-activity

pairings that resulted.) It was also one of the

very few wines I enjoyed straight from a can,

as opposed to poured in a glass, thanks in

part to the grapefruit. It was also one of less

than a dozen I truly liked and would drink

again—but more on that later.

First, the high points. Many of the best

canned wines were fizzy. People expect car-

bonation when they’re drinking from a can, a

number of producers told me. (These wines

are labeled bubbly or frizzante, not spar-

kling, because they don’t necessarily meet

the legal definition of that word.) There is a

lot of rosé in cans, too, bubbly and other-

wise. In fact, when I asked a wine shop asso-

ciate to show me canned wines, he replied,

“Do you mean rosé?”

The canned rosés varied wildly in color,

composition and age. Word to the wise:

Canned wines without vintages don’t neces-

sarily offer any indication of how long

they’ve been on the shelf. (Some cans I found

had dates on the bottom; others had codes

that I could decipher, while still others had

codes that I could not.) And a vintage isn’t

always a reliable guide. The 2017 Sterling

Vineyards rosé, which I consumed in a ball-

park, not only tasted old but also high in al-

cohol, while the 2017 Dear Mom Oregon Rosé

was actually pretty good—maybe because it

was a really beefy rosé, more like a red.

Overall and unsurprisingly, the fresher

wines were invariably better. These included

the 2018 Larkan Pink Wine Napa Valley and

the Underwood Rosé Bubbles, fruity and fresh.

The Lambrusco and Frizzante wines from

Frico were fresh and delightful, both canned in

When the wine was lousy the can only amplified its worst

attributes in the manner of a tinny loudspeaker.

A blend of organic Italian white wine

and grapefruit juice, the fizzy, fun Ramona is

a delicious citrus-inflected drink, and the

snappy design of the can means it looks

festive in the poolside cooler, too.

Pool Party

Ramona Ruby Grapefruit Wine

Spritz (250 ml)$5

A backyard barbecue requires a wine beefy

enough for burgers and steak but light

enough for everything else. This juicy, dark-

cherry-inflected Italian red in a 250 ml can is

compulsively drinkable.

Backyard Barbecue

Frico Lambrusco by Scarpetta

(250 ml)$5

A lively but uncomplicated wine is required

for this game, itself pretty straightforward

(project ball over net; repeat). Sourced from

a variety of grapes in Washington State,

this wine is the ideal match.

Beach Volleyball

House Wine Brut Bubbles

(375 ml)$6

Can Do

Cans certainly can be convenient to tote along, whatever

the event—but why bother if the wine inside isn’t good?

Here, 10 canned wines as quaffable as they are portable,

paired with the summer activities they suit best

EATING & DRINKING

Maybe your mom is coming along for the

picnic or maybe you just want this cute 187

ml rosé Pinot Noir in your basket. Or maybe

since these cans are so small and adorable,

you’ll want to spring for the set of four.

Family Picnic

Dear Mom Oregon Rosé

(187 ml)$4

The slightest form of summer exercise may

be swinging on a porch, so the right refresh-

ment is a wine with a little more going

on, such as the punchy Larkan rosé from the

Napa team of Sean Larkin and Bruce Devlin.

Porch Swing

2018 Larkan PInk Wine Napa Valley

(375 ml)$13

ILLUSTRATIONS BY NISHANT CHOKSI; F. MARTIN RAMIN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL