Barokes canned wine – The Return

MoIppai — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:44:44 +0000

Not long ago I reviewed Barokes Canned Bubbly Red Wine and to be honest I really didn’t like it. But I felt, perhaps I was too harsh, and admittedly didn’t realise it was sparkling – ahem, should have guessed from the name perhaps – so had it warm.

Anyway I thought I’d get the can of rose, chill it and give that a go.

Barokes Bubbly Rose

But before I get to that, there was an article from The Korea Herald by a Jean Oh that discussd the popularity of the canned wine in Korea.

Apparently Barokes have “cornered the South Korean canned wine market”, so maybe it’s just me that doesn’t get it.

Did find out some interesting facts about wine in cans though:

Canned wine debuted in America in 1936
Francis Ford Coppola released a canned wine, named after his daughter, Sofia, a few years ago.
Elkan, a Chilean canned wine has a special inner coating that makes the wine safe to drink.
Barokes sell on average, 174 cans a month in South Korea.

I’m gonna have to keep my eye out for these different canned wines, maybe they’re not all bad.

Going back to the Barokes Bubbly Rose unfortunately, although it was a lot better than the Shiraz/Merlot , it was way too bitter for me. Which was a shame as for picnics, etc, it’s a great idea.

Wine in a can

MoIppai — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:57:01 +0000

Fizzy Wine in a Can

There are some people who aren’t happy about screw cap closures.
There are some people who wouldn’t touch wine if it came out of a box.

So what about wine in a can??

Every now and then on the front page of the Daily Yomiuri here in Japan (an English language newspaper) there’s an advert for wine in a can. Surely a joke I thought? And surely only in Japan??

Well, yesterday I found some in a “foreign food” shop here in Japan, in the chiller cabinet next to the beers of all places.
(Japan tends to drink red wine straight from the fridge, even in some nice restaurants and bars). Admittedly in the ridiculously humid summers here, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea – when room temperature can be over 30deg C – however, I bought the can and left it overnight to warm up a bit.

First off, I was shocked to discover it’s actually from Australia and a company called Barokes.
Secondly, after checking out their website, it’s actually won loads of awards! After tasting it, I was even more shocked.

I’m afraid to say it was awful! I nearly threw it down the sink (I didn’t solely in the pursuit of journalism, of course, actually, I wanted to see if it would actually improve over time…it didn’t).

I should point out that I tried the Barokes Bubbly Wine – Cab Shiraz Merlot and at first I thought the Bubbly was just a marketing gimmick, but no, it really is a fizzy cab/shiraz/merlot!! Why??
To be fair to them, I don’t think I would like a fizzy shiraz if it came out of a gold plated bottle either, so maybe it wasn’t the whole “wine in a can” thing.
Especially seeing as their “still” red wines recently won the Gold Medal at the 2009 Berlin Wine Trophy, Germany. But even this sparkling has 5 awards! Obviously I know a hell of a lot less about good wine than I thought!

I will try their still wines in a a can and even their sparkling whites. Maybe I just started with the wrong one.

Following on from my can disaster I opened a Philippe Bourchard Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2006 which in vast contrast was absolutely sublime and I gave it a 9.5/10!
That’s probably my favourite Pinot Noir to date.

Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2006

Wine, Beer, Sake, Whiskey Blog at MoIppai » Canned Wine

Barokes canned wine – The Return

Wine in a can