Tetra-Pak Wines and Canada

Filed in archive Canadian Wines on August 25, 2006

Sort of following the cork versus the screw cap for wine bottles, the next controversy to follow as been Tetra-Pak wines.

I have already voiced my opinion about these, in a nutshell, ick, and it's good to see I'm not alone. Here's what one Canadian wine lover has to say about the whole bottle vs. pack issue. From The Toronto Sun:

Anybody else out there hoping for the end of summer and all those juice boxes masquerading as fine wine and taking up valuable space on the shelves?

We can only hope that the glut of Tetra-Pak wine is a summer thing (they are, at least, handy for the cottage or camping) and that come fall they will start disappearing so that better wines can find their way on to LCBO shelves.

I, for one, am sick and tired of the raging debate between environmentalists, Tetra-Pak stakeholders, the LCBO brass behind the strange plot and even the war of words being waged in the professional wine community.

I am not a fan of Tetra-Pak wines. I wasn't when they first started their campaign for world domination with the French Rabbit wines and I'm not now that they are being forced down the consumers' throat by a monopoly that obviously has a captive market. Wine agents and producers must play by the rules and bring these wines to market or face the consequences (which is often the sudden cold shoulder on other, more worthy, wines).