Font Fine Wine wants to change they way we think about wine on tap
Unlike beer, we’re not used to drinking wine from a tap. But with the serving method cropping up in venues across the city, it appears the trend is here to stay— but will it work in Melbourne?
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There’s a snobbery around wine that isn’t served from a bottle.
Unlike beer, we’re not used to seeing our delicate rose or chardonnay squirted from a tap and stored deep beneath the bar.
Connor Fitzgerald wants tackle the stigma head-on, with his new business Font Fine Wine which serves wine on tap.
Since launching the business in 2017,Font Fine Wine is on 130 taps across more than 50 venues in Melbourne and Victoria.
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Connor wants to teach drinkers that premium wine can still taste great, despite being served this way.
“Wine on tap is actually a great, quality product,” he says.
“People have seen it on tap in the past and have had a bad experience with it. Some venues may use poorer quality wines or cartridges.”
Connor and his wife Caitlyn started the business about four years ago after experiencing the perils of wastage at their own venue.
He spent years perfecting the tap technology before quitting his finance job to focus on Font Fine Wines full-time.
Connor says the product is a no-brainer — it allows venues to store different types of wine in climate controlled conditions, without the use of kegs or gas systems.
“Some venues use a keg or a key keg, which is a plastic bag in a keg, then use gas pressure to get the wine out of the keg,” he says.
“Then the wines are put through a … chiller to cool it down before being served. We don’t do that.”
Instead Connor stores the wine in a 10 litre plastic vessel, akin to a giant goon bag, and uses a vacuum system to bring the wine to the surface
“There’s no air, light or gas touching the wine as it goes through the pipe,” he says.
“A lot of wineries use pumps to move wines from vat to vat.”
Font Fine Wine bypasses the big brands to use its own selection of wines on tap — something Connor says won’t deter customers.
“We don’t think this will be an issue to grow our brand. We’re fully confident in our wine quality.”
At the moment there’s five styles of wine, including a King Valley pinot grigio, south eastern
sauvignon blanc, Riverina rose, Victorian pinot noir and a Heathcote shiraz.
“If people are unsure, we can give them a squirt. We believe the quality will stand up,” he says.
“People turned their nose up at screwcaps when corks were the rage — now good quality wine can come in a screw cap.”
Today Connor is applies the same principal: “good wine can come out of the tap.”
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