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A startup Cloverdale enterprise called MAS Wine Co. is thinking outside the box when it comes to wine.

Outside the bottle as well.

It's packaging and distributing its wine in stainless steel tanks. "Or, if you will, kegs," a press release reads.

In Fresno, Valley Wide Beverage Co. has placed some of the kegs at the Save Mart Center. In Sacramento, the annual Memorial Day Weekend Jazz Festival was to have poured MAS Vino and MAS Vino Blanco from 60 kegs -- the equivalent of 12,000 bottles.

The kegs are touted as money savers because -- in restaurants -- a lot of wine must be thrown away after it goes bad in an open, but unused, wine bottle. Other benefits include easier storage and no bottles to recycle or open.

Over the years, wine packaging trends have included boxing and bottles with screw-caps instead of corks.

Now the kegs.

Will cans with pull-tabs be far behind?

A simple Google search showed they're already here. Those selling wine in a can include an Australian company called Barokes, and Francis Ford Coppola has a canned Sofia Mini blanc de blanc sparkler.

No bothersome corkscrew.

Keep on trucking

The costs of moving California fruit to East Coast consumers have risen significantly.

The California Farm Bureau Federation said truckers and retailers have increased what they charge farmers to carry peaches, nectarines and plums to market.

Farmers say transporting a shipment costs $9,000, compared with $6,000 last year because of sharply higher fuel prices.

Retailers want farmers to pay the bulk of the increase, said Kerry Whitson, a tree fruit grower in Exeter, rather than asking consumers to pay a higher price. He said the hope is that demand will stay strong enough to offset rising costs.

More organic milk

Organic milk production has grown rapidly in California, the California Farm Bureau Federation reports.

It cited a report from the California Department of Food and Agriculture that says total sales of organic milk increased nearly 55% in April, compared with the same month last year.

The largest increase within the organic-milk category came in sales of organic fat-free milk, which rose 60%.

Legal outreach

California Rural Legal Assistance is marking 42 years of advocacy by launching a new Web site -- www.crla.org -- to reach a broader community as more low-income rural Californians now have access to the Internet.

The organization, which has 21 offices statewide, seeks to ensure that low-income rural Californians have access to free legal counsel and education and to protect the rights of farmworkers and other low-income rural communities.

A Fresno State stop

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, included Fresno State for the first time Wednesday on his annual Central Valley Ag Tour.

He brought 50 federal, state and local officials to California State University, Fresno, to visit the Fresno State Winery and Gibson Farm Market.

Other stops included Diamond Crystal in Visalia, Mulholland Citrus in Orange Cove, Old English Rancho near Sanger, the Kings River Conservation District, Bouquet of Fruits in Fresno and the Jeff L. Taylor Pine Flat Power Plant at Pine Flat Dam east of Centerville.