(Wines&Vines) - Ringing in the new year with sparkling wine is a time-honored tradition, but in Canada the new year promises to put a twist on that tradition as Vancouver-based Fresh Tap Logistics Inc. partners with Okanagan Crush Pad in Summerland to roll out what’s believed to be the country’s first kegs of sparkling wine. Building on a four-year-old keg business that’s put wines from more than 80 producers in 600 restaurants across western Canada and Ontario, Fresh Tap plans to use a system originally developed by Free Flow Wines LLC of California to dispense a Prosecco-style wine that Okanagan Crush Pad is making specifically for keg distribution.

 “There’s a huge demand because right now people are importing Prosecco from Italy that’s coming in KeyKegs,” said Christine Coletta, principal of Okanagan Crush Pad.

Coletta said the wine will be sold under the name Haywire, which is already well known for its flagship sparkling wine, The Bub. Haywire’s name will lend market profile to the product, made entirely from wild-fermented Okanagan fruit that’s spent 90 days in the winery’s own charmat tanks. Given the special filling process required, Okanagan Crush Pad will keg the wines itself.

It “will be a new innovation, a first for having sparkling wine on tap,” said Mike Macquisten, managing director of Fresh Tap, emphasizing that installation in the restaurants will be key to the success of the product.

Temperature, pressure and other factors have to be tightly managed to ensure the wine dispenses with the sparkle consumers expect.

 “It has to have a number of things from an innovation standpoint for the install,” he said.

Nicolas Quille, head winemaker at VinMotion Wines in Portland, Ore., kegged a sparkling wine with Free Flow in spring 2015 that has borne out the appeal of the system. “It’s been great.

There’s been a lot of demand,” he said. “On the minus side, it’s still quite expensive to do it in the keg, and the dispensing of the sparkling (wine) is kind of tricky.”

The best systems usually use a single tap, he said, and keep kegs close to the tap to reduce foaming and ensure the sparkle remains when the wine hits the glass.

The addition of sparkling wines to FreshTap’s kegged offerings comes as kegged wines experience growing acceptance in Canada.

Wineries like Hester Creek are kegging two to three times as much as they did three years ago, when the category was new, and competition is increasing with companies like FreshTap moving east and Groupe Versay of Quebec making inroads in the West.