What’s Bigger Than a “Nebuchadnezzar”?

If you are a wine maker, shipper, or seller you might know that largest size. Regardless of all your trivia knowledge you probably wonder sometimes about bulk wine transport. There are some options you may not have fully considered, one new enough you may not know about it yet.

One aspect of our modern, globalizing economy is that every product is becoming more of a commodity. This is good in respect to more and more people being able to access more and more of what our wonderful planet can produce. Wine is a perfect example of what humans can enjoy celebrating the bounty of our production capabilities. The good news is that there is still room for plenty of specialization and premium products, but every product is now becoming expected in bulk and at a premium quality. Is this achievable with wine? Can you provide bulk amounts at a quality you are proud of?

Being in the industry, I’m sure you are aware of the fact that size does matter, when it comes to wine quality. Specifically, the bigger the “bottle” the slower the aging of the wine and it’s exposure to oxygen. With variations in temperature during shipping, you may not know what your customer is actually getting, compared to the perfect product that left your winery.

There are two great ways to ship bulk wine and ensure its premium quality. Traditionally, wine is bottled at, wait for it, the winery, then up to around 13,000 bottles are packed into a container and shipped off, with lots of potential for breakage.

That sounds like a lot of bottles, doesn’t it? Did you know there are two other ways to ship over 30,000 bottles worth of your wine at once, with no chance of bottle breakage? Temperature fluctuations will also be much less of an issue due to the physics involving a large amount of liquid in one container. Your options of actually controlling the temperature with refrigeration also become more economically viable due to the actual bulk nature of your shipping as opposed to just shipping a lot of bottles. There is also the added advantage of slower aging due to the “bottle” the size of over 1,000 Melchizedecks! Yes, that is the largest bottle that holds 30 liters of wine.

You have probably heard of an ISO Tank. These sturdy tanks Hold the most liquid, equivalent of over 35,000 bottles of wine. They are definitely to most sturdy, of liquid containers available. One drawback, if you cannot dedicate one to exclusive use, is possible contamination from other products, that may have been in it before. This leads us to the Flexitank, a relatively new product, that holds a little less than an ISO tank – 32,000 bottles worth (which is still 2.5 times the amount traditionally ship-able in one container) but has the fantastic advantage of no contamination!