Places such as the Penn Quarter brasserie Poste, the pizza-and-pasta hot spot Graffiato, and the Columbia wine bar Aida Bistro are serving value-priced wines from kegs.
“We just wanted to do something new and offer people something they’ve never seen before,” says James Horn, general manager at Graffiato, which serves Prosecco from a keg. “It sparks curiosity.”
On a practical level, kegs keep popular wines fresher longer. Because the wine goes from a stainless-steel cask directly to the glass, it doesn’t oxidize as quickly. It’s also more eco-friendly and cost-efficient. According to Dan Donahoe of California’s Silvertap Wines, a keg of wine saves 26 glass bottles from the recycling bin and reduces a winemaker’s production costs by up to 25 percent.
This article appears in the March 2012 issue of The Washingtonian.
