AOL weighs in on boxed wines

From AOL, a nice list of tasting notes on boxed wines, some Tetra Pak, some bag-in-box.

Think Outside the (Wine) Box
Nicole Goksel, AOL

Myths, Truths & Shopping Suggestions

Boxed wines of the past had a deservedly bad rap, but new packaging techniques have enticed makers of excellent vino to get juiced about wine boxes. We sipped and swirled over a dozen of 'em, so keep clicking to get our top picks (and a list of ones to skip) and one heck of a lot of reasons why we think great boxed wine is the wave of the future.

Delicato Bota Box Chardonnay - 2005 (California)
Verdict: We liked it.
Tasting notes: Great floral smell, easy-drinking, a little bit dry
Tip: Once bottled wine has been opened, it's got a 4 day shelf life before it starts to really oxidize and turn. Because the majority of boxed wines are built with a bag-in-box system that doesn't allow air in, it'll stay fresh for at least 4 weeks.

Three Thieves Bandit Pinot Grigio - 2004 (California)
Verdict: Our favorite of the white wines
Tasting notes: Light, herbal, kiwi
Tip: Because boxed wine stays fresh for a significant amount of time, it's easy to keep a box on hand in the cupboard or fridge so you can pour a single glass whenever you'd like -- without having to go to the fuss of opening a new bottle or worrying about waste. It's perfect for those drinking a glass a day for a healthy heart.

Washington Hills Columbia Valley Chardonnay - 2004 (Washington State)
Verdict: We loved it.
Tasting notes: Citrusy, grassy, fresh, slightly chalky
Tip: While a few wines come in 1 or 5 liter boxes, the box you'll usually find on the shelves is the "3 liter cask," which holds the equivalent of 4 bottles of wine.

Banrock Station Chardonnay - 2006 (South Eastern Australia)
Verdict: We loved it.
Tasting notes: Peachy, vanilla, not too oaky
Tip: The 3-liter boxes we sampled cost between $11.99 and $29.99, with the average being around $16.99. While the high end of that range might be a bit more than you might wish to spend on an everyday bottle, remember -- you're actually getting 4 bottles worth. Even at $7.50 a bottle, that's still a steal.

Three Thieves Bandit Cabernet Sauvignon - 2002 (California)
Verdict: Our favorite of the red wines (tie)
Tasting notes: Buttery, blackberries, also comes in a 4-pack of single-serving boxes
Tip: Even if you're short a home wine rack, there's no need to worry, 'cause the flat box packaging makes it as easy to store as cereal.

Cinta Venezie Pinot Noir - Non-Vintage (Italy)
Verdict: We liked it
Tasting notes: A bit astringent, complex
Tip: Not so crafty with a corkscrew? No worries, 'cause the tab or cap is built right in-- eliminating the risk of crumbled cork and the resulting air exposure which taints the taste. Taps and screwcaps might have seemed tacky once upon a time, but more and more great winemakers are sealing the deal.

Chateau de pena Cuvee de Pena Vin de Pays - 2004 (France)
Verdict: Our favorite of the red wines (tie)
Tasting notes: Spicy, hint of blackberries, complex
Tip: If your friends seem resistant to the idea of boxed wine, try pouring in another room, and bringing in the glasses on a tray. Only after they've ooh-ed and ahh-ed, let 'em in on what it is they've been drinking. Great wines can come in square packages.

French Rabbit Merlot - 2004 (France)
Verdict: We liked it
Tasting notes: Cherries, spicy chocolate
Tip: Because boxed wine has been kept under such tight wraps, aerobically speaking, make sure to give it a big ol' swirl in the glass, let it sit for a minute to fully open up and aerate, or dig out that decanter from the back of the cabinet.

Thirsty Lizard Shiraz - 2005 (South Eastern Australia)
Verdict: We liked it very much
Tasting Notes: Plummy, jammy, easy-drinking
Tip: While this might all seem like a packaging revolution, folks in Europe and Australia have known and enjoyed the benefits of boxed booze for a long time. It's the perfect no-fuss way to enjoy the sorts of wines that are best enjoyed while they're still young and fresh -- no wine cellar required.

VRAC Cotes du Rhone - 2006 (France)
Verdict: We liked it
Tasting Notes: Strawberries & raspberries, a little spicy
Tip: If you're a fan of camping, sailing, picnicking, tailgating or otherwise frolicking far from home, boxed wines are the ideal no-shatter, lighter-weight take-along -- and many of them even boast a built-in handle for easy toting.

More to Sip -- And Skip
Also Worth Sipping:
- Killer Juice Cabernet Sauvignon - 2003
- Dtour Côtes-du-Rhône - 2004
- Black Box Sonoma County Merlot - 2005
Definitely Skip:
- Franzia Old World Classics Burgundy (though admittedly not as awful as we remember)
- Hardy's Chardonnay - 2005
- Three Thieves Bandit White Zinfandel - 2005
- Peter Vella White Grenache
- Blue Nun Riesling (but not so bad for cooking)

Best Boxed Wines: Think Outside the Wine Box - AOL Food

box boxed cask wine review tasting notes

Box Wines Blog Got Press Today

The Box Wines blog got some press today from Lenn Thompson on Hamptons.com. Lenn has another excellent wine blog, LENNDEVOURS. Lenn wrote about wine information on the web, in particular about the vibrant world of wine blogging. He mentions several good blogs, ending with Box Wines.

Lest you think wine blogs are yet another spot for wine snobbery, there's even a blog for lovers of boxed wines. The Box Wine Blog (boxwines.org), as its name suggests focuses on affordable wines that are often found in alternative packaging like boxes, cans and the like.

Hamptons.com - Wine on the Web

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Boxed Wine is the Ultimate Cooking Wine

The Tasting Lab of Cook's Illustrated asked the question "Do boxed wines stand up to bottled when used in cooking?" The Tasting Lab conducted a blind test of a red wine pan sauces using premium 3-liter boxed wine, 5-liter boxed red plonk, and a $10 Cotes du Rhone. The results? All the sauces were just fine. They repeated the test 2 weeks later, and all the boxed wine sauces were fine, but the Cotes du Rhone had gone "off." Again, 7 weeks later, all the boxed wines were fine for cooking.

The Ultimate Cooking Wine—Boxed Wine
11/2006
Can boxed wine compete with bottle wine—at least in cooking?

Granted, a cardboard box may not look as classy as a slender green bottle, but we wondered if boxed wine could compete with bottled wine when used in cooking. First employed in Australia and Europe and now widely available in the United States, spigot-released boxed wine is both inexpensive and convenient, and it has a long shelf life, which makes it appealing to the cook who may need only the occasional cup.

To find out if boxed wine belongs in the kitchen, we tasted an array of boxed varietals ranging in price from $12.99 to $19.99 for three- or five-liter boxes, including Shiraz, Merlot, and Burgundy. As a control, we included a $10 bottle of the Cotes du Rhone we often use in the test kitchen for cooking. Sampled fresh out of the box, some of the wines did not impress, tasting sweet, simple, and sangria-like. But others were quite good, and tasters actually preferred them to the bottled wine. For the next test, we used each of the wines in our Modern Coq au Vin (page 19) and a red wine pan sauce. To our surprise, all of the sauces-even those made with the wines we didn't like straight from the box-were fine.

After the bottles and boxes had been open for two weeks, we tasted them in pan sauce again. As expected, the recorked bottle of Cìtes du Rhìne had skunked, depreciating to a flat, alcohol-flavored sourness, but the boxed wines were still going strong. Even at a full seven weeks, the unrefrigerated boxed wines were fine for cooking.

How do boxed wines stay fresh for so long? An airtight, bladder-like plastic sac collapses as wine is removed (the box is there only for stackability and portability), making the wine less susceptible to oxidation. Price is another plus: Those we tested cost the equivalent of $2 to $5 a bottle.

The Ultimate Cooking Wine—Boxed Wine-Taste Tests-Cook's Illustrated 11/2006

Related Tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, cooking

Wine in a Box?

The question is "WHY NOT?"

Today, in Online Cooking, Clara Myers asks:

Wine In a Box... Why?

Friday, 1st June 2007
By Clara Myers

Wine snobs don’t turn your patrician noses up just yet. There are actually valid reasons to box wine. Boxed wines actually take up less space than bottles if you throw away the box and just refrigerate the membrane.

Europeans have been selling boxed wine for years now, and they seemed to have survived the practice. So if the Euros don’t find it gauche, who are we to complain? Here are some more positives:

• Boxes don’t break and are easier to handle than bottles
• Boxes are easier to store than bottles in the refrigerator
• Boxed wines stay airtight thereby stay fresher longer
• Boxed wines don’t require a corkscrew

If you’re having a problem with boxed wine, it’s probably because you’re intermingling flashbacks from your misspent youth--gallon bottles of Ripple and Boone’s Farm intertwined with the boxed Zinfandelesque concoctions sold in the past.

There are some great wines that are sold in boxes—especially the Australian wines. Another great choice is Peter Vella Wines--great Burgundies, Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots, Chablis, and Chardonnays. Most boxed wines are sold for $25 or less. Also, a box holds the equivalent of four bottles which makes boxed wine great for picnics. Wine also stays fresher longer in a box which makes it a more economical purchase than bottled wine. You can actually throw away the box and just store the bag which has less of a footprint in the refrigerator.

If you’re really bent about boxed wine, buy a carafe for presentation purposes. Now I know some of you purists out there are screaming, Wine must breath! Like I said, that’s what carafes are for. Learn the art of decanting.

If you haven't tried boxed wine, this time of year is a great time to start. Boxed wine is great for barbecues, family reunions, beach parties--anywhere a large group is getting together.

© 2007, Clara Myers. Visit Vin Caché at http://vin-cache.com for great domestic and imported wines as well as wine baskets stuffed with gourmet treats. You are free to use this article (unedited) on your web site provided the byline and site attribution remain as-is with live hyperlinks to our web site.

Online Cooking - Bringing out the inner chef in everyone

Boxed Wine $1 Off in Schenectady

Any readers in Schenectady, NY, here's a link to a coupon for $1.00 off boxed wine at Guidarelli's Discount Wines & Liquors. It's for 3, 4, or 5 liter box, limit of 3, good through end of January. DON'T try to print this image, it's not the valid coupon. Click on the image below to go to the site, and click on the print button there.

technorati tags: box, boxed, wine, discount, coupon

I started out on Burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff

Spotted this December 2002 article in Randy's World of Wine. Sommelier Randy Caparoso was the multi-award winning wine director and founding partner of the Roy's restaurant group (from 1988 to 2001).

Burgundy is a place in France. But when I penned my first story for The Honolulu Advertiser in 1981, the Burgundy familiar to most Americans was the cheap, easy, and at best inoffensive red colored stuff bottled in "jugs" by producers like Ernest & Julio Gallo, Paul Masson, Almaden, and the like. To the eternal horror of the French, California made Burgundy almost never contained a drop of actual Pinot Noir.

Chilled wine was especially hot at the start of the 1980s, but it was mostly bottled as jug Chablis and "Vin Rose." Like many things we buy (especially today), the packaging was probably more expensive to produce than the wine itself. Bigger was not better in those days either.

Today, however, wine in general is bigger and better than ever before. Wine snobs may hold their noses up at the mass production Chardonnays, White Zinfandels, Cabernet Sauvignons and Merlots in the stores today, but just about every bit of it is a lot better tasting than the Burgundy, Chablis and Rose we drank 25 years ago. Heck, even today's wines-in-the-box are better. In fact, there is currently such an overproduction of great tasting wine that you can find perfectly delicious bottles for as low as $4, $5, $6 – practically the same prices as 25 years ago. Drink up, America.

Randy's World of Wine - wineloverspage.com

Today's varietals in jugs and boxes truly are quite superior to the plonk of the 1980s. So just relax, and enjoy, everyone!

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine

A Box of Wine - A Cultural Icon

Many of the Franzia wine box Halloween costume photos I posted in October came from the website Box of Wine - A Cultural Icon. This website is a must-see for anyone curious about the whole boxed wine phenomenon. Writer, composer, and musician S. K. Waller is gathering info for a big full-color glossy coffee-table book about boxed wine. On the site's front page, Waller comments on wine-snobbery:

"I'm darned tired of wine snobbery. Wine should taste good. It's that simple. You don't need to know how to swirl a glass, or inhale the vapors as the wine sits on your tongue (that little pantomime makes you look like a demented fish, anyway). All you need to know is, do you like it? If not, it's a bad wine. If so, it's a good wine. And who the hell cares how much it costs? I took a $6.99 bottle of Barefoot Sauvignon Blanc to a wine tasting party a few years ago, where all the bottles were hidden inside paper bags so no one would know their identities. It won 1st place over dozens of other wines, including a $45.00 bottle of some California-wannabe-French wine. That night I learned a valuable lesson -- and won a fancy corkscrew as first prize besides." -- S.K. Waller

Box Of Wine - A Cultural Icon

The often disparaged box of wine has won a place in the hearts of one out of five wine drinkers worldwide. Why? Is it because of its lack of pretentiousness? Its ability to fit in with nearly any group or party? Certainly, it has less to do with economy than one might think at first consideration, because people the world over seem to love having their picture taken with a box of wine under their arm, suspended over their open mouths and even holding it front-and-center as they would a baby, a pet, or a treasured possession. Many people even dress up as a box of wine for costume parties. It's apparent that the simple, satisfying box of wine has become a cultural icon, recognizable to all and loved by many.

Box Of Wine - A Cultural Icon

Well, the if National Trust of South Australia officially names the bag-in-box wine cask a "heritage icon" for it's contribution to South Australia's cultural identity, then why not a coffee table book? Take a moment to visit Waller's "Boxxo" site!

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, boxxo, box o' wine

New Website - Boxed Wine Worldwide

New this year to the online wine community: Boxed Wine Worldwide and its associated blog, The Wine Box.

This ain't your parents' box of wine!

The wine industry is seeing a revolution — a revolution in how we package and drink wine. A new generation of containers are now being used by great producers to deliver great wine in a box, not a bottle. And for good reason: Boxing wine makes a lot of sense. Boxed wines are already wide-spread in Europe and Australia, and they are becoming more visible in the US.

BoxedWineWorldwide.com is totally dedicated to the boxed wine industry and the boxed wine drinker. Here you will find the latest news and commentary on boxed wine in all forms and styles.

Many new exciting features are still in development, so, stayed tuned!

Also: Read about how BoxedWineWorldwide.com was born and follow The Wine Box, a blog by the founder of BoxedWineWorldwide.com that provides commentary on boxed wines, the boxed wine industry, and sometimes just wine in general.

Boxed Wine at BoxedWineWorldwide.com: Boxed Wine - Bag in Box Wine

Diana Sonnenreich is the creator of Boxed Wine Worldwide, and she is obviously a seasoned wine professional.

Ms. Sonnenreich, founder and owner of BoxedWineWorldwide.com, has worked for over 10 years in many areas of the wine business, including wine making, importing, retail, restauants, and private consulting. She studied wine tasting and enology in France and Switzerland before becoming one of boxed wine's biggest supporters.

BoxedWineWorldwide.com - About Us

It's fantastic that such an expert is devoting so much attention to boxed wine. I am looking forward to much more from her website and blog.

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, Boxed Wine Worldwide