A Nation of Winers

I was grabbing a sandwich at the deli the other day when something new in the cooler caught my eye. So instead of having a Dr. Brown's Root Beer with my BLT, I washed it down with a Pinot Noir soda. Not bad. It's like grape soda for grown ups.

After I got home, I did a little research and found that Vignette Wine Country Soda was created 3 years ago and is made from 50% California varietal grape juice, carbonated water and natural flavors. Sounding a little too much like a marketer, Pat Galvin the founder of Vignette says, "The goal was to create a soft drink that captured a little bit of wine country magic in a soda bottle." To me this is a classic case of looking at two things that already existed but had never been put together before – wine grapes & soda – to create something completely new.

The reward for being innovative? While Coke and Pepsi are fighting tooth and nail to squeeze every penny out of a can of cola, Pat gets two bucks a bottle at retail. In the immortal words of Eric Cartman, sweet.