Springwise is a great resource for ideas that I’ve followed for the past several months. Last week they published their top 10 food & beverage ideas for 2008 and two great wine ideas made the list with a bonus pick at the end.
#5 – Twitter Taste Live
I’ve been involved in this event since the second tasting and agree that this is the most significant wine idea of the past year. Starting from literally nowhere, organizer Craig Drollett of Bin Ends Wine has created a global wine tasting event that is as powerful as Wine Blogging Wednesday. And he did this in about 5 months. A lot of people don’t think Twitter is a good platform for wine tasting events but I think we’ll look back on this in a year and see the genius here. You’ll have to trust me on this one.
#8 – WineSide
With the economy in the tank, wineries will be hard pressed to pack visitors into their tasting rooms. Why not bring the tasting experience home? That’s what’s behind WineSide, a patented 6 or 10 cl sample of wine sealed with a screw cap. Wineries can easily send these samples not only to critics, wine writers and bloggers but also to their prospective customers (um, how about Twitter Taste Live?). The major barrier to adoption for U.S. wineries is a reasonable mobile bottling facility. If anyone wants to invest in such a business, I’ll run it for them. Seriously. This is a real market opportunity here.
.5 – Volute
I think this should have made the top 10 but I’m biased. Added as one of the 3 bonus entries, Volute is a single serve wine brand packed in an aluminum container. You know, the airplane size but not in glass that can break and is not as recyclable. Not only does aluminum recycle more efficiently, it’s also lighter than glass reducing it’s carbon footprint. I hope to see more wines packed like this in the future.
I’ll be on the lookout for more of the wine related ideas on Springwise and will bring them to you throughout the year. UK readers might want to check out Naked Wines straightaway.
[Via Springwise]