Wine traditionalists sneer when vintners replace cork with plastic. They howl in contempt at screwtops.
So what will they make of a California company taking an even bolder step: doing away with bottles altogether and replacing them with cardboard tubes?
FOUR wine is marketing its Cabernet Sauvignon/Petite Sirah blend in three-liter (three-quart) canisters. Cheap wine has been sold worldwide for years in cardboard boxes but FOUR claims this is the first time a premium California wine has broken out of its glass house.
Brand manager Larry Leigon said the tubes are more eco-friendly and less expensive than bottles.
The wine can last longer after being opened, he added. Less oxygen enters through the tube and its spout than a bottle whose cork has been popped.
Leigon is no stranger to innovation, having helped pioneer the production of premium non-alcoholic wine at Ariel nearly a quarter-century ago.
"Glass was an innovation in the 1400s or 1500s," he said in an interview at the Grove Street Winery in Healdsburg, Sonoma County where FOUR is bottled - or rather, bagged.
"If we do this correctly, we can change the tradition and make it better. There's a tradition that can grow up around this tube, too."
Some French winemakers, not surprisingly, are skeptical of storing premium wine in a tube.
"I don't see the point. People drink wine with food and you put the bottle on the table. Round cartons are for milk," said Alain Vauthier, owner of Chateau Ausone in Saint Emilion, part of the Bordeaux winemaking region.