Copa di Vino uncorks plan to sell wine-by-the-glas

Copa di Vino uncorks plan to sell wine-by-the-glass

The Dalles-based startup seeks nationwide distribution

Premium content from Portland Business Journal - by Erik Siemers, Business Journal staff writer

Date: Sunday, May 9, 2010, 9:00pm PDT

Copa di Vino CEO James Martin wants to make single-serve wine more elegant and more popular.

James Martin could have named his company “Wine by the Glass.”

That is, after all, what he’s pitching: high-quality Pacific Northwest wine in ready-to-drink, single-serving portions.

Instead it’s called “Copa di Vino,” using the far more elegant Italian translation, which is befitting since Martin is attempting to bring a touch of elegance to the world of single-serving beverages.

“It’s not in a box and you’re not drinking by the straw,” said Martin, founder and CEO of Copa di Vino, his self-funded startup based in The Dalles. “It’s in a fashionable and sexy glass that makes it culturally appropriate.”

The idea is far from revolutionary. The wine industry is littered with concepts attempting to break wine away from its 750-milliliter trappings with smaller, portable quantities.

Previous efforts, including wine in juice boxes and bottles with attached glasses, focused more on portability while requiring that the wine be poured into another vessel.

The distinction with Copa di Vino is that the wine is meant to be consumed directly from the hour-glass shaped recyclable plastic cup that comes sealed at the rim.

Martin’s goal is to compete in the beer- and soda-dominated ready-to-drink beverage category, which he said represents 80 percent of all beer and soda sold today.

“You’re talking about an $80 billion market out there that’s in ready-to-drink packaging,” Martin said. “In the wine business, you’ve never had that solution. Feeling the rim of a wine glass is complicated and tricky.”

Copa di Vino’s solution came with the help of a partner in France that developed the technology that enabled the rim of a wine glass to be sealed.

Its business model is two-fold: The company will offer its by-the-glass packaging solutions as a vendor to other wineries and it will sell its own branded product.

Martin, who also owns the six-year-old Quenett Winery, is declaring his initial soft launch a success.

Using a French wine, the product sold out its allotment at January’s Rose Bowl. It’s selling through a handful of retailers, from Northwest Whole Foods and New Seasons groceries to smaller vendors like the Elephant’s Delicatessen inside the Fox Tower in downtown Portland.

“I put it between the cash register so everybody notices,” said Jack Simmons, the wine and beer steward at Portland’s Barbur World Foods in Southwest Portland, where Copa di Vino sells for $2.49 each. “I imagine with a few warm days and with people thinking of being outside and picnicking, that should really move them along.”

Martin said he’s working on launching the product nationwide.

In the last month, the company has begun bottling its own Northwest-made wine using the Copa di Vino brand and reached deals with distributors in 25 states.

Martin said the Gorge Amphitheater in George, Wash., has made Copa di Vino the venue’s sole wine vendor. Officials with the amphitheater couldn’t be reached for comment.

But wine drinkers are a finicky bunch that are tied to their traditions, which could be one of the biggest hurdles Copa di Vino has to overcome.

“Probably more than any other beverage, (wine) is very much governed by tradition. People are resistant to change simply because it’s such an old and perceived to be such a high-quality product,” said Pan Demetrakakes, editor of Food & Beverage Packaging Magazine in Deerfield, Ill. “New fangled aspects in packaging just don’t find the audience they would with other kinds of products.”

As an example, Demetrekakes points to the cork, which he describes as a “terrible way to close up a bottle.”

“They leak, they grow mold, they deteriorate, and they have a failure rate of something like 10 percent more,” he said. “Corks persist for no other reason than people expect them and associate them with high-quality wine.”

Tradition has the same grip on the standard glass bottle.

“I do happen to think that those are the reasons why single-serve hasn’t made much headway in wine,” Demetrakakes said.