Stack Wines: Pitching convenience for the casual wine drinker

It’s officially a trend. Following the debut of single-serve Zipz wines in this country and Winestar’s French wine in a can, now comes Stack Wines — and just in time for tailgating season.

Instead of toting actual bottles of wines — and glasses — pack a stack: four stemless plastic glasses of wine shrink-sealed together in a tower — until you snap the glasses apart and hand each to a co-conspirator. Peel off the foil seal and your wine is ready to sip. No corkscrew involved.

The packaging isn’t exactly elegant, but it’s functional. I popped a stack of Stack’s red wine Charisma to test on friends. No wine savants, just people who enjoyed a glass of wine now on then. One, who lives alone, said she’d certainly buy it for those nights when she feels like a glass of wine, but doesn’t want to bother opening an entire bottle. Or wasting what she doesn’t drink.

Charisma is a decent, fruity red. That’s about all I can say. Not many details are offered other than its viticultural area (California), alcohol level (11.5%) and the fact that the wine is off-dry. Stack Wines also gives its pH and malolactic status. Seriously? For wine in a plastic glass?

Oh, but the description is ever so playful: “As the room is ignited with electrifying music and cedar incense burning by the window, you dance like the delightful flavors of the blackberry and currant tart you just enjoyed that still play on your tongue.”

No comment.

The line also includes a Cabernet Sauvignon, which I didn’t try, described as having “the aromas of blueberry and cedar from a morning hike, that succulent blackberry jam you had during breakfast with friends, the licorice and chocolate from a midday snack, or the mint you enjoyed to round out the end to that perfectly peppery dinner.” The two whites are a Chardonnay (not objectionable) — and a Pinot Grigio.

At $12.99 per stack, it would be too much to expect fascinating wine. This is pitched more for the casual wine drinker.

Who knows? By the time the next Hollywood Bowl season comes around, there could be even more contenders in this new category of prepackaged individual servings of wine. Let the competition begin.

Stack Wines four-packs are available online through Liquorama for $12.99. They’re also sold at Famima stores, at Seeds Marketplace at USC, H&H Liquor in Los Angeles, Yummy Foods in Silverlake, Albertson’s on Hillhurst and many more local stores.

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