Drink Inside the Box.

It may have been a while since you tried wine from a cask - perhaps not since the ’90s or early 2000s.

After all, it was much cheaper than those fancy bottles.  Plus, when you were done, there was a handy silver blow-up ball to kick around the park.

But gone are the days of the cheap and nasty goon bag.  Cask wine has had a chic, environmentally conscious makeover by the team at Melbourne’s Hey Tomorrow.

Two of the co-founders, couple Shane Barrett and Sacha Imrie (head sommelier at Daughter in Law restaurant) say they have reimagined the cask in a new environmentally friendly two-litre box.

’Drinking from a cask with longer shelf life means if you want to drink less you certainly can,’ Barrett says.  “Sacha and I would waste so much wine because we never got around to finishing bottles within a few days.  She’d want half a glass and I’d drink a few.  Then for some reason or another, we’d forget the bottle had been opened.  It was wastage at it’s worst.”

Barrett and Imrie have teamed up with Jesse Gerner, Kelly O’Loghlen and Andrew Fisk - hospitality pros behind some of Melbourne’s best-loved food and wine venues including Anada in Fitzroy, Bomba in the CBD and Samuel Pepys bottle shop in Northcote.

Far from a side hustle, the founders, who have known each other for 15 years, are in for the long haul and have invested some big bucks to make their cask-wine business a success story.

Imrie says she became curious about cask wine about five years ago whilst studying for the Wine and Spirits Education Trust diploma.

”The packaging was so dull and there was a serious image problem that had to be addressed,” she says. “It got me thinking how could we turn something dull and dry into something much more interesting.”

Hey Tomorrow has collaborated with some of the biggest names in wine, and environmentally-friendly packaging comes printed with the winery’s name, giving seasoned quaffers an idea of what’s in the box.

”We partner with reputed wineries to build confidence in our product,” Barrett says.  “Hey Tomorrow is about accessing quality wine, endorsed by well-known names and delivering a product that can sit tableside for longer than a bottle can.”

Working with small boutique producers is the key to their success so far.  “It’ about quality, not quantity for us,” he says.

From a Mac Forbes sauvignon blanc to a Lowboi 2021 gruner Veltliner, top varietals are a must.

”Cask wine has always been filled with cheap wine, so the reputation remains low, but since we launched this time last year, we’ve noticed people want to make an environmentally conscious decision when they drink, too,” Imrie says.

”Drinking cask wine is a good opportunity to give something back to our kids’ generation and raise awareness by having less of an environmental footprint with our packaging too.”

Words by Jane Rocca for Domain Review