Piccola Cellars

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For a unique wine tasting experience, check out Piccola Cellars in Woodinville’s Warehouse District. Here samples of wine are poured from a stand-up piano bar. Yes, you read that right. The piano has a half dozen taps tethered to kegs inside the piano containing premium wine from Washington State. These are stainless steel kegs 19.5 liters in volume holding the equivalent of 26 bottles of wine and delivering 131 5-ounce glass pours. It’s perfect for a wine bar, a restaurant lounge or people that like to drink wine on a regular basis – like me.

The keg idea is the brainchild of founder Diana Kaspic who evolved the idea while attending Central Washington University’s World Wine Program. Relying on local wines, the benefits of tap wine as noted on the Piccola website include no packaging waste (100% reusable); no product waste; and less energy since the keg weighs less than bottles. All this translates into economy for the consumer since the cost is less per volume purchased.

While it is easy to imagine how a restaurant/bar would benefit from a wine tap system (see it in action at Seattle’s Four Seasons Hotel near Pike Place Market), it’s a little harder to see how consumers access this new packaging system. For that, Diana and her partners have evolved the “Tapped In” program where members buy their own dispensing tap for home use and in return they receive 15% discounts on wine purchases. When you’re done with one keg, you simply swap it for a filled keg either at the winery or another pick-up location.

We tend to think that wine should only come in a bottle or a box but in fact, historically wine came to consumers via clay amphora and then wooden barrels. For centuries, wine from Bordeaux came to merry ol’ England in 60-gallon barrels and patrons at bars and restaurants served from the barrel. (Think of the oxidation issue here!) The invention of mass produced quality glass for packaging wine didn’t come about until the 17th century and even then it took a generation or so to figure out how to seal it. Thank goodness for cork. So delivering wine in stainless steel kegs is a variation on an old theme that will continue to baffle the wine industry – how best to deliver fresh wine for your consuming pleasure.