Guest Post By: Shaida K
Picture this – you’re sitting in a restaurant on a date night or a much-needed night out with friends and you want to order some vino. And although you love your friends/significant other, you don’t necessarily share the same taste in wine. You could order a glass, but cringe at the thought — this hasn’t been the best decision in the past. A full bottle is out of the question, but you want fresh wine damn it (not the stuff that has been re-corked for God knows how many days). Cue angel music. There’s a new standard for wines by-the-glass: wine on tap! Yup, you can now ask “what’s on tap” when ordering wine at some of your fave bars and restaurants! Oh, but not all taps are the same. At a recent wine tasting event in the iYellow Wine Cave I discovered that FreshTAP is the way to go…
Founded in 2011, FreshTAP started out in the west and has quickly become a hit across the nation. And thankfully our friends at iYellow Wine Club have partnered with them to bring fresh, local wines via tap to their cave! I had the pleasure of heading over to taste my way through a range of Ontario wines (there are currently 10 wineries on board). I’ll admit, I was very skeptical at first – I thought the pressure, lack of bottle/cork and steel keg would compromise the wine. But I am happy to report that it tasted much better than expected. In fact, in my opinion, the taste actually improved. I found the wines to be crisper, smoother and most importantly fresher…
How? The FreshTAP stainless steel kegs prevent spoilage and maintain pressure to reduce oxidation (which is exactly how wineries store wine). What does that mean to you? Fresh wine every time — from the first to the last glass. But make sure you look for the FreshTAP logo before ordering because standards vary across the industry and these guys have worked really hard to ensure top-notch quality when it comes to wine-on-tap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5188FmM8nf8
Not only was I super impressed by the taste of the wine, but I love that I can help reduce my impact on the environment by switching over to the tap. Every keg purchased by a restaurant contributes to a 92% reduction in the carbon footprint during shipment (1 keg is equivalent to 26 bottles of wine)! In addition to that, the kegs are refillable which reduces the production of bottles, labels and corks. This is great reason alone to encourage your local bars and restaurants to install FreshTAP. Some of the trailblazers who’ve embraced this new trend are Drake One Fifty, Rock Lobster, Cibo Osteria & Bymark (click here for a full list of restaurants). I’m really excited about FreshTAP and look forward to sipping fresh wine by-the-glass at my favourite restaurants. If you want to learn more about wine-on-tap head on over to FreshTap Ontario. Cheers!
Special thanks to iYellow Wine Cave for hosting us. As always, all reviews and opinions are entirely my own.
No Comments