Is 50cl the future?

UK multiple retailer Waitrose is planning to lead the market for 50cl wine bottles. The grocery chain is working with marketing specialist Jonathan Cahill in developing a demand for this smaller format using the tagline “Vin à Deux”. Invented by Cahill who believes the bottle size needs a concept for consumers to latch onto, a logo featuring two glasses, the words “Vin à Deux – The comfortable size for two”, will appear on shelf cards and new bottle formats in the supermarket.

The wines have yet to be launched, but Waitrose is apparently working with Frédéric Brochet from the Loire and Burgundy’s Boisset, the company behind Tetra Pak wine French Rabbit. Producing the formats is French manufacturer Saint Gobain and the bottles, which are the same height as 75cl ones, cost 28% less to make.

“Nearly 40% of drinking occasions are between two people and, anecdotally, most people who have a bottle of wine between them have some left over,” Cahill told the drinks business. “There’s no logic to the 75cl size other than a goat’s scrotum [which was originally used as a container for wine].”

Continuing Cahill explained, “This launch is the first time that a size variant has been given a clear marketing platform … the 50cl size has been tried in France (as an industry response to the drink/drive problem highlighted by Sarkosy). However, they gave it no proposition,” and “it flopped” according to Cahill.

“However, I gather that restaurants in France are now offering little bags to take away the remainder of your wine – a sort of alcoholic doggy bag – if you can’t finish the bottle for fear of getting caught at the wheel.  “So there’s a demand, which they haven’t properly responded to.”

© db Patrick Schmitt, 04/04/07