News

A French wine in a 250ml carton with a straw will get its UK launch at the London International Wine Fair on 20-22 May, before going into supermarkets next month.

The Tetra Pak carton features a 'sensory straw', which has four holes in the end to spread the wine around the mouth to enhance the flavour.

However, Tetra Pak product manager for UK and Ireland Ian Williamson said he expected the wine to cause concern among alcohol awareness groups, due to the similarity to cartons used for children's juice drinks.

Williamson said he was aware the straw was being trialled on wine in Europe, but that it had been developed for juice drinks. "It is not something we have control over."

He added that the company was promoting the one litre Prisma carton as a more adult format.

The Tandem wine is produced by Cordier Mestrezat and was trialled in Belgium – where it was sold in the sandwich aisle of supermarkets, to emphasise that it could be drunk on the go.

* See next month's Packaging News for new wine packaging formats.