(Forbes) - Wine in kegs is an ancient concept that has been ongoing in many parts of Europe. In fact, before Prohibition, it was not unusual in the U.S. to find refillable wooden kegs at bars and even in retail shops . After Repeal of Prohibition kegs were discouraged by a combination of confusing laws across the states coupled with new investments in the bottling line. 

Writing for Wine Business Monthly back in April 2013, Bill Pregler said the next time kegs were tried in the U.S. was in the 1970s. They were not small wooden barrels, they were made of stainless steel, and they were mainly for restaurants and bars to pour wine by the glass. 

Pregler said in that article that both the wine and the process was abysmally lacking and that the keg was a failure. Yet, as late as 1984 a story by United Press International’s Frank Thorsberg mentioned house wines poured from kegs in restaurants from Paul Masson, Inglenook and Almaden wineries. Designed to avoid waste, all but one ounce of wine could be drawn out of those kegs. A Paul Masson spokesperson called the keg delivery system more stable, more economical, easier to handle and they were reusable. But restaurants and bars said installing the keg system was expensive, and so …

The keg is once again in vogue. Today, the keg is reusable stainless steel or one-way Polyethylene terephthalate (PET).

The American Association of Wine Economists (AAWE) recently released Working Paper #199 on the subject of kegs, by researchers Michaela Nuebling, Rhonda Hammond, Carl Behnke, Barbara Almanza and Sandra Sydnor. The researchers wanted to find out what winemakers and winery owners think of the keg today and for its future. 

256 California wineries participated in the online survey but less than half of them produce wine in kegs.