Elevating the Fast-Food Drink Selection

Quick-service restaurants have long been at the forefront when it comes to creating offbeat novelty items to raise visibility for their brands and give something new to their loyal customers. One of the latest trends may also be one of the most unexpected: The pairing of fast food with wine. Such collaborations make a PR splash and, in some cases, help elevate the brand positioning of some of the QSR chain’s menu items. They also may bring new customers to the wine category by making the product seem more accessible to people who don’t usually choose wine as a beverage option. 

Consumers’ general perception, promoted by purveyors of wine, of the drink being appropriate for a greater variety of occasions than in the past—while viewing sports, for example—also plays into the trend. 

A number of examples of collaborations between wine and fast food—some more novel than others—illustrate: 

  • Last week, Domino’s and Yellow Tail, an Australian wine brand, announced they had created a new limited-edition Yellow Tail and Domino’s Red Blend, a fruity wine designed to pair perfectly with Domino’s cheese pizza, as well as complementing a variety of toppings. The bottles also introduce a new technology called “Twist. Tap. Order.,” where twisting off the cap of the wine bottle and tapping it on a smart phone pulls up the Domino’s menu and gets the ordering process started. The wine is available in select stores and online in some markets via ReserveBar, while supplies last. 
  • Wine and Italian food are a natural pairing, but Pizza Hut took it to the next level in November 2024, when it partnered with Irvine’s Just Beyond Paradise Winery to launch a limited-edition “pizza wine,” fermented from ripe tomatoes and infused with basil and other herbs and spices. The wine, when served chilled, tasted similar to grape-based white wine, the partners said, describing it as offering “an aromatic blend of fresh herbs and spices with rich, sun-ripened tomato notes and a subtle hint of toasted oak, reminiscent of a perfectly baked pizza crust.” The wine, which was also offered in a limited-edition gift set including a bottle, two Pizza Hut-branded wine glasses, and a wine opener, was available through the winery’s e-commerce site. It was billed as something to bring to a holiday pizza party along with the chain’s holiday Triple Treat Box containing two medium one-topping pizzas, five breadsticks, and 10 cinnamon sticks. 
  • Carl’s Junior and Nocking Point paired for a second time in 2023, offering a box of two wines, namely a bottle of 2019 Blend Your Happy—a limited blend curated by Carl’s Jr.—and a bottle of 2020 Nocking Point Origins Pinot Noir. Both were billed as pairing well with the chain’s A.1. Double Cheeseburger. The two companies’ previous offering in 2020 took the form of a burger box pairing three of Nocking Point’s red wines (a 2017 Amell-bec Malbec, a 2017 Turnaround Red, and a 2016 Year VII Cabernet Sauvignon/Syrah Blend) with a $10 Carl’s Jr. gift card to cover the cost of the chain’s then-new Steakhouse Angus Thickburger. The wine pairings were meant to give consumers a “steakhouse experience” to reinforce the burger’s quality positioning.
  • Taco Bell, often at the forefront of innovation when it comes to fast food-based novelty products, collaborated with Queenston Mile Vineyard back in 2020, introducing a limited-edition wine called Jalapeño Noir in select Canadian Taco Bells, via Uber Eats, and on the Taco Bell website. The product, which was a Pinot Noir based on a 2018 single-vineyard cuvée, was designed to pair with and help promote a new product, the Toasted Cheesy Chalupa. It was made in a batch of 33 cases that sold out within 24 hours. Some of the chain’s Canadian locations had been serving wine for a few years at that time.

Players in the fast food sector have occasionally created collaborative alcoholic beverages outside of the wine space as well. Arby’s, for example, introduced two flavored vodkas with Tattersall Distilling, inspired by the chain’s curly fries and crinkle fries, respectively, in 2021; Dunkin’ paired with Harpoon Brewery in 2020 for donut-infused beer; and Sonic launched hard seltzers, in Sonic’s most popular beverage flavors, with COOP Ale Works in 2021. While most fast food-alcoholic beverage ventures are limited in nature, the last example is still on the market today. 

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