By Megan Ruge, Editor-in-Chief
The Marketing Department and PRSSA hosted a blind wine tasting event as part of a research project being conducted by senior Noa Albilia and Assistant Professor of Marketing Robert Williams. Williams and Albilia have been working together on wine in a can research as part of an independent study project Albilia has been conducting for credit.
“[Williams], my advisor, has been researching canned wine for years and the market isn’t really studied as much as much as we’d hoped it would be,” Albilia said.
The goal of the study was not only to make people aware of canned wine, but also to conduct field research on whether people can tell the difference or prefer canned wine by doing a blind taste test.
For the taste test, participants were given two unlabeled samples, one from a can and one from a bottle, of each of the three different wines. The first wine was a Chardonnay from Coyote Moon Vineyards, the second was a Rose from Bridge Lane Wines and the third was a Moscato from Coyote Moon.
The participants tasted the wine and then marked on a card which sample they liked better. After the event, Albilia will compile all of the collected data to aid them in their research and see what the results were.
Albilia expressed her hopes that people will give canned wine a chance after participating in the study and explained why the quality was different.
“I think that it’s something that people should try that I think they would really like,” Albilia said. “It helps with portion control, it honestly helps keep the wine better tasting because the lack of oxygen inside of the can than in bottles.”
“Once you pop a bottle open, oxygen comes in and you’re probably not going to finish that bottle…and you’re going to put it away and then the [oxygen] diminishes [the wines] quality,” Albilia continued.
When introducing the event, Williams also talked about the benefits of canned wine and why it may not have been so popular before.
“Canned wine is nothing new, it’s been around for quite a long while but part of the problem has always been the lining,” Williams said.
He said that the acidity of the wine was breaking down the lining of the can and it ruined the quality of the wine itself.
“Now we’ve got, not only the better lining, but the cans are made out of aluminum. Aluminum cans, whether its soda whether its Red Bull whether its wine, are 100 percent recyclable infinitely,” Williams continued.
Williams said that aluminum cans can be completely reused. In the recycling process, the cans are melted down and remade into a can with no loss of product in the process.
Though Williams and Albilia encountered issues when putting the event together, they expressed that they were happy with the end result and were thankful for all the factors that helped make it happen including the companies that donated wine.
“It really all came together very quickly and people were really willing to donate their wine…because they’re interested in this study too, because it’s their business, their product,” Albilia said.
The event concluded with the playing of boozy bingo in which participants played bingo cards that featured wine related words. Winners of the bingo game competed for the chance to win a Giant gift card and a date night basket that included wine glasses, chocolate, a wine koozie and a gift card to the Kind Cafe.
