It was a busy day at Barrel 42 as the crew worked together on a machine that was filling hundreds of cans with wine, topped, sealed and then boxed up. It's a white wine for one of its clients, Awen Winecraft, which just entered the canning market.

Nichole Schulte with Barrel 42 says they've been canning wine for Quady North for years now.

“It’s very adventure friendly, so any adventure you want to go on, you don’t have to worry about a corkscrew or glass breaking, you can pop a can in your bag, your backpack and it’s adventure ready, it’s ready to go any time you are," Schulte says.

But not everyone was as enthusiastic to open a can of wine. Many believed the can alters the flavor of what's inside.

"Years ago, can liners used to be made of BPA and BPA was determined to be unhealthy, so can manufacturers switched their liners to a non-BPA liner and that liner is susceptible to break down with an acidic solution. Wine has acid in it and that acid can degrade that liner and when the wine comes into contact with the actual can itself, the aluminum, that’s where the bad reaction can take place," Schulte says.

Schulte says can manufactures have addressed that issue, "and some of our suppliers for wine making products have addressed that too so I think that problem has pretty much been solved now.”

They're popping tops at Hummingbird Estate, too for similar reasons.



“The honest answer, we’re a baseball family. We wanted to have our wine at the Medford Rogues baseball games and the only way we could serve them was in a can so yes, we decided to can so we could have our wine while we watched baseball," says Meghann Walk, general manager at Hummingbird Estate.

Right now, you can find an estate red, which is primarily grenache, a rose of pinot noir, and their flagship white, the white pinot noir all in cans.

“The wine we put in a can is the same quality of wine we put in a bottles so we absolutely stand behind the wine, it is now in a package where it is more accessible," Walk says.

Here's some more good news : the shelf life for a canned wine is pretty low, about six to 12 months. That's good news for those of us who are a little impatient.

“These wines are meant to be enjoyed right away. Whereas you can put a bottle of wine in your cellar and it can age gracefully, but cans are meant to be enjoyed as soon as possible," Schulte says.