What's with wine in the trashy Tetra Packs these days?

[Xanikk999]

To some extent yes - but don't fool yourself. People are paying a premium for ambiance. Two restaurants, food being equal - the one that's "nicer" can charge higher prices.

I dont know about you, but i wouldnt shell out a couple hundred dollars more for my party just for "atmosphere".

Food quality should be the utmost concern. Atmosphere is very unimportant unless the place is a total trash heap and infested with roaches.

 

[Shaihulud]

Its cheaper and i like it, makes it easier for parties since its packed in a larger container. I especially like the one that you can draw out the wine by pressing a tab. Imo atmosphere and class is a very important distinction when a person decides to buy something, but in regards to wine i prefer substance over class, In regards to the poster saying that knowing the wine came in a plastic container kills his appetite for the wine, i thought thats pretty funny.

 

[RedWolf]

I dont know about you, but i wouldnt shell out a couple hundred dollars more for my party just for "atmosphere".

Food quality should be the utmost concern. Atmosphere is very unimportant unless the place is a total trash heap and infested with roaches.

That may be the case but I would still maintain that people are willing to pay for atmosphere. Hopefully some our members in the restaurant industry will appear to back me up.

People are paying for three things:

1) Food
2) Service
3) Atmosphere

Look - my girlfriend and I can go to our favourite local pub and spend $50 plus tip and have great food and service. OR we can go to niagra on the lake to a place like this:

http://www.innonthetwenty.com/ott_restaurant.htm

We spent $150 there last year. The food is fantastic as is the service - and the restaurant was beautiful. Although as far as enjoying the food - I 'd say I enjoyed the food equally - I like pub food a lot. So what was I paying the extra money for? A different type of experience - the chance to eat a romantic dinner in a place "consistently rated as one of the finest restaurants in Canada". The atmosphere contributed in the end to me enjoying the food MORE.

There are a few new restaurants near me - the prices are probably double that of some of the family orineted chain restaurants in town. Is the food twice as good? I'd say no. So why are they always packed? They're young, hip, fresh, unique and classy inside. People are paying for the experience.

Let's consider celebrities. Why does Jennifer Lopez pay thousands of dollars for dinner? Certainly the food doesn't cost that much. She's paying instead to eat in the "It" restaurants.

 

[RedWolf]

In regards to the poster saying that knowing the wine came in a plastic container kills his appetite for the wine, i thought thats pretty funny.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not going to drink a crappy wine as long as it's in a glass bottle... But two wines being equal - I'd certainly rather have the one in the bottle over the one in the tetra pak. I'd rather not display a cardboard box on my dinner table.

 

[RedWolf]

Nice cars are probably better than a junker car. Some higher price shoes are also, much better, although more likely than not, and that will always be strange to me as well. Nice restaurants have better food.

Let's consider this example:

My girlfriend's father has a red Acura Integra - completely stock. A guy in my building has the same car, red - probably about the same year. But he has aftermarket chrome rims. Probably cost him $2000. Why? It adds nothing to the functionality of the car - BUT it improves the look and makes it unique - which allows him to enjoy his car MORE.

 

[StarWorms]

Wow. That's tacky. I haven't seen any in the UK but I certainly wouldn't buy wine from a Tetra pack.

 

[GinandTonic]

I mean, sure, in a fancy dinner you'll still want (at least for the time being) the old-school bottle, but in a less formal/fancy setting, nothing wrong with it.

Now somewhere I have grampa's old decanter. Thirty years ago a wine bottle on the table was down market, now days a decanter would clearly lable you as a !"£$. If the tetrapac's take off I might get the chance to dig out grampa's decanter!

 

[REDY]

...

Hmm it sounds like when first McDonalds or Budweiser without budweiser appeared. Welcome to the world

 

[Jawz II]

What's with wine in the trashy Tetra Packs these days?
Theyre cheap?

 

[Kozmos]

I was just drinking wine from a tetra pack yesterday. Much easier to handle then carrying 5 fragile bottles. Also you look a lot less suspicious.

 

[jameson]

I wouldn't serve wine from a tetra pak, but I don't think there's anything wrong with using it for cooking, making sangria or a tinto de verano ( a Spanish drink, basically red wine and lemonade. Quite refreshing ). There was an article a couple of days ago, I think in the NYT, where it was demonstrated that using cheap wine for cooking did not actually taste any worse than cooking using expensive wine.

 

[Swedishguy]

If they are cheaper then they should be better. But don't buy 1$ ones.

 

[Perfection]

Just to anger you, from now on I'm only going to purchase wine in Tetra packs.

 

[Elrohir]

So the wine is actually in a plastic bottle, covered in a cardboard case? Why?

 

[StarWorms]

If they are cheaper then they should be better. But don't buy 1$ ones.

If they're cheaper, they should be worse

 

[RedWolf]

So the wine is actually in a plastic bottle, covered in a cardboard case? Why?

Not exactly - there's actually two types of alternative packaging:

PET Bottles - these look pretty much like glass bottles but are plastic.

Tetra Paks - They're like multi-layered cardboard cartons - usually used for juice.

If you're interested do a search on "Tetra Pak". I didn't realize it until today but it's actually a brand name/trademark.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

That may be the case but I would still maintain that people are willing to pay for atmosphere. Hopefully some our members in the restaurant industry will appear to back me up.

People are paying for three things:

1) Food
2) Service
3) Atmosphere

Look - my girlfriend and I can go to our favourite local pub and spend $50 plus tip and have great food and service. OR we can go to niagra on the lake to a place like this:

http://www.innonthetwenty.com/ott_restaurant.htm

We spent $150 there last year. The food is fantastic as is the service - and the restaurant was beautiful. Although as far as enjoying the food - I 'd say I enjoyed the food equally - I like pub food a lot. So what was I paying the extra money for? A different type of experience - the chance to eat a romantic dinner in a place "consistently rated as one of the finest restaurants in Canada". The atmosphere contributed in the end to me enjoying the food MORE.

There are a few new restaurants near me - the prices are probably double that of some of the family orineted chain restaurants in town. Is the food twice as good? I'd say no. So why are they always packed? They're young, hip, fresh, unique and classy inside. People are paying for the experience.

Let's consider celebrities. Why does Jennifer Lopez pay thousands of dollars for dinner? Certainly the food doesn't cost that much. She's paying instead to eat in the "It" restaurants.

I'm with you all the way on this one. The taste of the food - or the wine - is, of course, important, but unless you're drinking it purely for the fact that it'll get you drunk, then it's worth the extra money to be a little classy. Clothing is similar; sure if you're only wearing clothes to cover yourself/keep you warm, then you can wear whatever you want, but if you want to have some sort of class about you, you'll shell out the extra cash to stick out, just like you would shell out the cash to make an evening special at a fancy resturaunt, or to pour your wine from a glass bottle into a fancy wine glass.

 

[ShannonCT]

Alcohol should be sold in glass and served in glass. Anything less ruins much of the psychological appeal of good booze. The difference between what people consider good booze and bad booze is mostly psycholoigcal yeah?

 

[RedWolf]

Just to anger you, from now on I'm only going to purchase wine in Tetra packs.

Damn the slobbering masses!

 

[Truronian]

Alcohol should be sold in glass and served in glass. Anything less ruins much of the psychological appeal of good booze. The difference between what people consider good booze and bad booze is mostly psycholoigcal yeah?

It also has a lot to do with quality...