Historic Portuguese wine brand Gatão is getting the 2021 party started by presenting its iconic Vinho Branco in a can for the first time.

Ardagh’s pioneering Wine Can is designed specifically to protect the great taste of wine while offering portability, convenience and sustainability. Market leader Gatão has been quick to recognise the benefits, becoming one of the first Portuguese brands to add it to their packaging portfolio. The first run of Gatão cans had generated a fantastic consumer response, exceeding sales expectations, proving a ready thirst for easy-drinking wine in this innovative new format, and promising to make the characterful “can with the cat” a big hit this summer.

The iconic brand from Sociedade dos Vinhos Borges dates back to 1905, yet Gatão has a fresh, bold image with strong appeal for younger consumers, and adopting Ardagh’s Wine Can is a move that has the next generation of wine drinkers firmly in mind. As shown in Ardagh’s animated story, the pioneering Wine Can is particularly attractive to consumers looking to bring their favourite beverages to informal settings like picnics, pools and gigs, and generally to enjoy wine in more casual ways. Ready to meet this year’s surge in outdoor socialising, Gatão in a can is the ideal “all-in-one” party drink.

Gatão’s Vinho Branco is a young white wine characterised by notes of lemon, passion fruit and pineapple, with a moderate alcohol content and easy-drinking style. The 250ml aluminium can, boasting a cool, contemporary design by Atelier Rita Rivotti, is unbreakable, light, and quick to chill, and easy to open and hold, looking great in the hand: the perfect choice for summer meet-ups with friends.

It’s also a highly sustainable packaging choice – bearing in mind a target market who seek to be caring as well as carefree. Metal recycles infinitely with no loss, and cans are highly efficient logistically: a 250ml can accounts for less than 5% of total product weight, increasing the volume of wine a truck can carry, which in turn lowers overall transport costs.

‘Launching our Gatão Vinho Branco in a can is a major, innovative and audacious step,’ says Ana Montenegro, Communication and Public Relations Manager at Sociedade dos Vinhos Borges. ‘In partnership with Ardagh, we’ve been rigorously testing for over a year to make sure our famous wine retains its perfect freshness and character in the Wine Can, and we are delighted with the result. It’s an evolution we are very proud of.’

Dirk Schwung, Sales Director at Ardagh Metal Beverage Europe, says: ‘It’s great to see a market leader, with a long and famous tradition in wine, choose to expand into cans. The fantastic success of Gatão’s sell-out trial run shows how ready the market is, particularly at the younger end, for new and creative ways to enjoy drinking occasions with friends – especially with the rise in outdoor consumption.’

The cans will be sold in supermarkets and across the hotel, restaurant and café trade throughout Portugal, expanding shortly into Brazil, the United States, Spain, Canada and Cyprus, as well as the other 70 markets where Gatão continues to be a Portuguese ambassador to the world.