How bulk wine is becoming en vogue
It’s high tide for the bulk wine sector as businesses wise up to the environmental and economic benefits of bottling in-market, as Eloise Feilden discovers.
“TEN YEARS ago, if you said ‘bulk wine’, people would treat you like an alien,” says Eduardo Alemparte, vitiviniculture director at Morandé Wine Group & Lourdes Bulk Wine, Chile’s second-biggest exporter of wine in bulk.
In 2023, the tide is turning on perceptions of bulk wine, however, with more businesses cottoning on to the economic and environmental benefits of bottling in-market.
Rob Malin, founder and CEO of wine brand When in Rome, is well aware of bulk wine’s “dirty reputation”. When in Rome packages all of its wines in alternative formats – from bag-in-box to cans and paper bottles – meaning its wines are necessarily shipped in bulk and packaged in the UK.
When the brand launched in 2015, “we were hugely struggling to get producers” who were willing to ship in bulk and allow their wines to be packaged in boxes, he says, but Malin has since seen a shift in perception.
“On the one hand, we were trying to persuade people to drink wine out of boxes, and on the other hand, we were struggling to find producers willing to put their wines in boxes. The same struggle used to apply to bulk wine, but increasingly there is much less resistance,” he says. “We’d never find anybody that wouldn’t sell us wine in bulk now, at the price point we buy at.” New World countries are often associated with bulk wine, but markets closer to home are tapping into the sector. Vivo Cantine, an Italian cooperative group which sells 75% of its wines in bulk, has seen the proportion of its readyfor-bottling wine sold to foreign consumers increase at a triple-digit rate over the past decade, according to managing director Paolo Lasagni.
Horst Mueller, global head of VinLog, the beverage specialist arm of logistics firm Kuehne+Nagel, has seen this European shift first-hand. “There seems to be a big push to convert some of the European flows into bulk wine,” he says. New World countries, Mueller adds, “have always played a big role in the bulk wine segment”. The question to ask now is “how the ‘Old World’ will adjust to bulk wines”.
So what is impacting the bulk boom? Major environmental benefits are driving the shift towards bottling in-market, both in Europe and further afield.
“It’s the biggest feather in our cap as an industry,” says Paul Braydon, head of buying at UK importer and bottler Kingsland Drinks. “Taking a glass bottle from Australia and shipping it halfway around the world just isn’t environmentally savvy.”
In June, Indevin Group announced plans to begin bottling a selection of its Villa Maria New Zealand wines in the UK from early 2024, after working out that the change will reduce Villa Maria’s CO2 emissions by 27% per shipment .
Driven by a sustainability mission, Indevin chief supply chain officer Gareth Insley also wants to shift the quality narrative. “There is a myth that bulk wine is synonymous with cheap wine,” he says. “However, we are proving that this is not the case.
“Bulk shipment is increasing globally, and with the consistency in quality it can deliver, it is being widely used for high-value wines, which is certainly changing perceptions.”
Partner Content
Indeed, the price point of wines being shipped in bulk and bottled in-market has also shifted. Braydon says that “the average price point you see for wines that are bottled inmarket has gradually increased year on year”, and Kingsland Drinks is now regularly bottling wines which retail for more than £10 a bottle.
So bulk wine’s cheap reputation may soon be a thing of the past, but economic viability is still its driving force. Set against a backdrop of war in Europe, rising inflation and a slow recovery from a global pandemic, wine businesses are doing everything they can to lower costs. “As unexciting and unsexy as it is,” Braydon says, “the movement of containers is so expensive.
“We’re in a position where literally every penny counts, both from a retailer perspective and from a consumer perspective, and anything you can do to save money getting your product from point A to the point of purchase is critically important.”
Lower costs do not equate to lower quality, When in Rome’s Malin argues. “The fact that it’s cheaper is inescapable. It’s just maths. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the wine is bad,” he says. “It’s cheaper because it’s cheaper to ship, and the quality element is separate. If you put good wine in a bulk container, and you look after it properly, then it will taste great at the end.”
Bulk wine experts from the world over will descend on Amsterdam in November for the World Bulk Wine Exhibition. Otilia Romero de Condés, the exhibition’s CEO, says quality perception is still one of the key challenges facing the sector.
“There is still a lot of inexpensive bulk wine,” she confesses, “although it is increasingly difficult to make a bad wine, and low prices are increasingly associated with higher quality.”
Good value is vital at any price point, and shipping in bulk can help keep prices as low as possible. The best wines in the world will never be bottled in-market, Romero de Condés admits, but bulk wine remains the backbone of the industry. “The best wines in the world are bottled in wineries, yes, but those wines are not what sustains the industry,” she says.
“The industry survives thanks to the people who drink wine at reasonable prices.” db
Related news
Ireland sees huge surge in sparkling wine imports
Sustainability and scale take centre stage at WBWE 2025
UK supermarkets face wine shortage as 2,000 glass workers go on strike
