How Tapping into Keg Wines with The Gotham Project Can Help Save the Planet

As I wandered into The Barrel Chest in Roanoke, Virginia to buy a bottle of wine I came upon a surprise in the back—a small bar with a smattering of taps and old church pew seating. I thought it must be beer, but was surprised to find a few wines on tap. Not lower quality wine, but better stuff I would buy in a bottle for $15-$20. I went for Malbec, a personal favorite. It was delicious. And it got me thinking…

My foray into tapped wine is exactly the kind of experience Bruce Schneider was going for when he partnered with Charles Bieler to start The Gotham Project. Schneider, a seasoned winemaker, wanted to produce a better glass of wine. They even have a Manifesto. It states, “Our promise to you is a better glass of wine. One that you are proud to serve, your customers will enjoy, and is sustainable.” 

How Can Keg Wine Help the Planet?

According to Nielsen, 73% of Millennials are willing to pay more for a sustainably sourced and packaged product. As more consumers grow cognizant of the impact of their choices, kegged wine becomes a more responsible choice. 

“The Boston consulting group BCG came out with a study about how during COVID-19, consumers’ awareness and the importance they place on sustainable packaging has grown at a very fast clip. I think that's had to do with some of the things we've seen, like the wildfires in California. People believe the choices they make as consumers need to reflect that awareness and appreciation for everybody's responsibility to do their part, to keep the planet healthier,” Schneider said.

Noble ideas, but how does this all work? For The Gotham Project Schneider said, “We use exclusively stainless steel kegs. So they're infinitely reusable as long as you take care of them. Probably the biggest benefit is the sustainability of the process. You're not wasting glass bottles that, in theory, and the best case scenario, get recycled. But less than 30% of them actually get recycled. [Kegging is a] much more sustainable way to do wine by the glass.” 

Free Flow Wines on the West Coast sees keg wine similarly, “We believe that together we can build a category that will make a difference, from the wines that are poured into your glass to saving the world – one keg at a time,” Jordan Kivelstadt, Co-Founder of Free Flow Wines said. They also use stainless steel kegs, and according to their website, “[Those kegs] put into service will save 2,340lbs of trash from the landfill over their lifetime, equaling tens of millions of pounds of waste to date. The facility has a custom water reclamation system that cleans over 95% of wastewater for reuse.” And, if you are curious, check out their website Try Wine On Tap’s constantly updating calculator of pounds of bottles, corks, foil, and boxes saved with the use of Free Flow’s reusable kegs—it is like watching The National Debt Clock, except it is tracking something good for the planet. 

Sommelier Sarah Tracey, a wine pro Certified by the Court of Master Sommeliers and owner of The Lush Life,  thinks the sustainable packaging is what attracts consumers, “the environmental benefits, like minimizing the waste from bottles, corks, and packaging, especially in the markets where I'm working in New York city, [is important]. People are pretty savvy and very interested in what they can do to be more sustainable. They get into how many thousands of bottles from landfills kegs save. Then they try it, and they actually like the wine—then you have a fan for life.”

What About Quality?

Founded in 2009, Free Flow Wines wanted to create a product that moved wine beyond the bottle and provide a fresher, more sustainable glass for restaurant and bar patrons. Free Flow Wines have kegged over 250 premium wine brands and distributed them to more than 4,500 restaurants, hotels, sports, and entertainment venues across the nation. 

On the East Coast, The Gotham Project has also moved into bars, restaurants, and hotels with their premium wines. At the core of Gotham Project is the ethos, “sustainable farming practices are really important for us. The wines have to be delicious and authentic and really good—they need to be very good representations and expressions of the grape varieties, and the places they come from.” 

Sarah Tracey of Lush Life

Hand-selecting quality wines is only the first step. These two companies do not have vineyards. They source from ones they trust and then bulk transport the wine in large bladders to ports and then their filling facilities. According to Schneider, “The wine is well-protected from air [in the bladders] so the wine stays really fresh in transport. Then we have tanks at our winery in New Jersey where we store the wine, and then we keg on a regular basis. It stays totally fresh. And, it is a really responsible way to move the product.”

From the wine service side, Tracey emphasized, “minimizing waste has been a huge concern. Kegs solve that problem. [For example] you have a bottle open behind the bar for a day or two too long, and hopefully servers are quality controlling every glass that goes out to guests. But, there's always those moments where things tend to fall through the cracks and it's a busy service. The bartender is just pouring and not actually making sure the bottle is fresh. I had very few returns on glasses of wine that come from keg. They're always at a consistent temperature, and ready to go. I say that ‘set it, and forget it’ aspect of streamlining wine by the glass to me was a huge reason to give it a try.”  

The Cost of Kegging

There is a school of thought that putting in the facilities to serve keg wine make it prohibitive for small, independent restaurants, bars, and hotels. But this is a fallacy. According to Schneider kegged wine typically is 10-15% less expensive than wine by the bottle, but “there's definitely an upfront cost. Based on the savings in bottle cost, and labor savings, on average we estimate it takes the restaurant six months to pay back their investment in the system. After six months it's cost neutral for them. From that point, they're actually saving money.”

And now the two flagship keggers of wine have teamed up to make distribution even easier. In 2017, they launched a filling station. According to Schneider, “We have a joint venture in a  New Jersey production facility. We pooled our keg fleets, so we have a shared fleet that's just dedicated to wine. And together we're able to get the kegs back to one of the two filling stations, either our filling station in New Jersey or their filling facility in California. And it just makes it that much more efficient—kegs can go to whichever facility is closer.” This cooperation leaves a smaller carbon footprint, saves fuel, and allows for wider distribution of delicious, sustainably sourced, and environmentally-friendly packaged wine. 

Advantages Beyond Sustainability

There are many reasons to embrace keg wine just based on the benefits for the planet, but in a more practical look at adoption among restaurants, hotels, and large venues there are many benefits as well. Storage space, especially in places with small kitchen footprints like NY and California,an important consideration. Storing a set of kegs takes a lot less space.  

According to Tracey, one of the most important benefits for retail is “ease of use. Wines by the glass in any restaurant setting can be really labor intensive. You have staff that's constantly moving cases from the wine room out to behind the bar and stocking. You have a really busy service and bartenders are trying to get bottles open when there are 25 tickets up at the service bar, the recycle bins and trash bins fill so quickly during a busy night. It takes a lot of effort to manage that. That was the first thing that sold me on giving it a shot just. I also think kegs would be [viable] for cruise ships and theme parks. Keg wines really streamline service.”

“It's a great way to do wine by the glass because the first glass and the last glass taste the same. Every glass is fresh and delicious, the way that winemaker wants it to taste,” Schneider said.