Goodbye, Frat. Hello, Chic. The Keg Has Arrived.| Recipes Articles

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- James Beard

Goodbye, Frat. Hello, Chic. The Keg Has Arrived.

Just a few years back, the only beverage you'd find in a keg was beer. Times have changed.

Now, if you're at a chic restaurant like San Francisco's Frances or New York City's DBGB, chances are good that those kegs will be filled with wine. Wine that flows from the same type of keg through the same type of tap as your standard Amstel Light— but instead of meeting a pint glass, it meets Riedel. And we're not talking jug wine: these taps spout high-end wines from respected boutique producers like Unti, LIOCO, and the Scholium Project.

Thanks to the cost savings afforded by kegging wine and serving it on tap, high-end wines don't necessarily mean high-end prices. By reducing waste and packaging, keg wine cuts production costs down 20 to 25%— and those savings are passed down to the drinker.

So how does this work? Can wine from a keg really be as good as wine from a bottle? Restaurateurs, bartenders and winemakers say yes. "It's beautiful in its simplicity. Gas goes in as wine goes out," says Colin Alevras, beverage director for the Momofuku Group. "It's the wave of the future."

The gas he's referring to is nitrogen or argon, and these tasteless, neutral gases fill the space left in the keg as the wine is pushed out so that oxygen never touches the wine. This means that the 130th glass (standard wine kegs hold just over 25 bottles worth of wine) will be just as fresh and vibrant as the first glass.

But the biggest benefit of keg wine may be environmental. Eliminating bottle waste is a big step towards running a greener restaurant. Doug Washington, owner of San Francisco restaurants Town Hall, Salt House, and Anchor & Hope says, "If you took your car at 1am and drove around the back alleys behind every restaurant, you'd see huge recycling cans overflowing with empty wine bottles...a huge majority of guests never even saw that bottle. It went behind the bar and was poured into glasses. This expensive bottle, everything about it was a waste, a complete and utter waste."

Restaurants have responded by offering bigger wine-on-tap programs. Charles Phan's always-fashionable Out the Door in San Francisco has eight selections. Newly opened pizza hotspot Zero Zero, also in San Francisco, will soon have twelve. And it's a hit with the clientele— both restaurants say that these tap wines make up over half of their by-the-glass sales.

More winemakers are noticing that keg wines are gaining steam and aren't wasting time embracing the trend. Newly-launched Free Flow Wines, based in Sonoma, CA, bypasses the bottle altogether and sends all five of their sustainably-farmed varietals straight into kegs.

Of course, there will always be a place for wine in bottles— especially if your tastes trend towards aged Bordeaux. But if it's just a glass (or two) you're after, a keg just might be the perfect place to look.