New Box Wine Is Fine For Picnics, Fun
When you’re headed out for a picnic, or even a backyard cookout, and you want to drink wine, you don’t want to lug around heavy, breakable bottles and fool around with corkscrews. So what do you do?
Don’t be a wine snob. Don’t laugh. Bring along a box of wine. The wine industry has come a long way from the days when boxes contained nothing but cheap, nondescript wine. Now you can get good wine to pair with good food, and you don’t have to pay a lot for it.
This isn’t the kind of wine you want to stick in your cellar to age. You buy it, you drink it right away. But you will be amazed at the variety and quality of wine available in boxes. Box wines have always been available in supermarkets, but now fine wine shops are even stocking them.
Box wines have a lot of advantages. They’re cheaper. They weigh less than the same amount of wine in glass bottles. The wine stays fresh longer because no air gets into the wine. The inner plastic bladder collapses as the wine is drawn out. (Some claim it will be good for six weeks. I’ve managed to keep a box for five weeks, and the wine still tastes good.)
The packaging is easier on the environment, reducing packaging waste by at least 85 percent and carbon emissions by 55 percent. You don’t have to worry about the cork going bad. Oh, did I mention they were cheaper? These are wines my Cheap Bastard pal Dan should positively drool over. He probably lies awake dreaming about wines like these.
Most boxes of wine contain three liters, or the equivalent of four standard bottles of wine. Most of them sell for less than $20 a box, or the equivalent of under $5 a bottle. I’ve tested several wines, and I have not been disappointed. These probably are not wines I would serve at a fancy dinner. But who knows? I might slip one in and see if anyone notices. Some of them have a complexity that’s surprising at this price.
I spent the Fourth of July weekend with my wife’s brother and his family in Nashville. We had 34 people in the house, and though many of them were beer drinkers, I thought it would be a perfect test for boxed wine. We served the Bota Box Cabernet Sauvignon ($18.99) and it was a hit.
I had it with hamburgers and steak, and it matched the food just fine. It’s a full-bodied wine, a typical Cabernet with blackberry and plum aromas with smooth tastes of cherry, blackberry and vanilla, with a hint of spice on the finish. The tannins weren’t overbearing, and it had a pleasant, lingering finish. We drank it for several days, and it was good every time.
I also tried the Bota Box Pinot Grigio, and it was representative of the Pinot Grigio grape. It has a pleasant bouquet of flowers and apples, with flavors of apple and honeysuckle. It’s a medium-bodied wine with a perky finish. It’s great for sipping on the porch after a tough day, or with a light dinner.
The folks who make Bota Box like to point out that their square cardboard container with a plastic bladder inside is completely recyclable. They recommend it for hikers, campers and beach goers who are concerned about the environment. Those of you old enough to remember the bota bags full of wine we used to carry on hikes or skiing in the ‘60s will understand the name. Makes we want to tune in my Pandora Radio oldies station, lie under a tree and dream big dreams while sipping from my Bota Box.
Bota Box also makes Chardonnay, Merlot, Shiraz and Old Vine Zinfandel.
I also tried several varieties of a new packaging system called Octavin, and those wines were terrific. Octavin has taken several name brand wines and boxed them in an eight-sided box containing a plastic bladder. Many of these also sell for less than $20, or less than $5 a bottle. If you buy these wines by the bottle you’ll spend $10 or more.
I tried the Silver Birch Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand and found it to be just what you would look for in a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc: tart citrus flavors of lime and grapefruit, with a sharp finish. So now when I need a glass of white wine to sip while I’m cooking dinner, I just reach in the refrigerator and draw a glass of refreshing Sauvignon Blanc without having to open a whole bottle that I wouldn’t finish.
Octavin touts their packaging as a home wine bar, and that’s a good description. You can have several varieties of wine open at one time and not feel pressed to finish them any time soon. You just take a glass of whatever you feel like and then try a different variety after that if you want to change.
Octavin also offers Big House Red and Big House White. I’ve long been a fan of Big House wines because they deliver pleasant, easy-to-drink wine made from Mediterranean varietals at a good price. Now in the Octavin package they are a steal.
Big House White starts with a pleasant, fruity aroma that leads to a nice peach and tropical fruit flavor. It’s made of several white varieties that are fermented separately and then blended.
Big House Red is a fruit bomb, showing fruit aromas followed by raspberry flavors mixed with a little pepper. It’s a smooth, easy-drinking wine of medium body, good to sip by itself, but also a good match to red meat and tomato sauces.
I also tried Octavin’s Monthaven Chardonnay, a full-bodied wine from Monterrey. It’s full of tropical fruit flavors with some apple, pear and citrus. The wine is barrel-aged, but the oak flavors are kept nicely mellow. It sells for $23.99 a box, or the equivalent of $6 a bottle. Monthaven also sells Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Octavin package.
Octavin offers several other wines: Pinot Evil Pinot Noir and Pinot Grigio, Boho Vineyards Old Vine Zinfandel and Seven, a blend of seven Spanish red wines, led by Tempranillo.
Whatever your favorite variety, you likely will find it in a box if you look for it. There are several other brands of box wine available, but these are among the best. So the next time you plan a picnic don’t forget to pack the wine box. You won’t regret it.
One Response to “New Box Wine Is Fine For Picnics, Fun”
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Dennis, thanks for letting us know about the new 3 liter Octavin box wines (Big House Red/White, etc.). I’m interested in trying them out, but the stores I called do not carry them yet. Do you know where we can get them locally?
Thanks.