The Box Wine Guy Reviews Delicato Merlot

The Box Wine Guy picked a good one to review yesterday. The vintage dated Delicato California Merlot wines in 3 liter Bota Box packaging from Delicato Family Vineyards have been getting plenty of attention in the last 3+ years. The Box Wines blog yesterday featured a review of the 2005 box, and gave it a rating of 8.5 out of 10. Here's what he had to say.

In tasting Delicato Merlot 2005, we seem to have skipped the 2004 vintage. We last tasted Delicato Merlot 2003, and never saw 2004. In any case, the 2005 Merlot is a worthy successor. The aroma has blackberry and saddle leather notes. The wine is nicely structured, with plenty of berry, plum, and oak.

Wines » Delicato Merlot 2005

Follow the link to see the complete review. The Box Wine Guys reviews are always thorough and thoughful, and reflect a respect for the need to judge the wine that's inside the box, not the box itself.

technorati tags: Delicato, Merlot, box, boxed, cask, wine, review

The Box Is Your Friend at Holiday Parties

The Recipe Source Online blog posts today on Serving Wine at Holiday Parties. Take a look, for good solid advice on purchasing wine for a holiday party. Boxed wine has it's place in the world, and this post does a good job of fitting the box into the big picture. Here's an exerpt

A Box is Your Friend

There is an unfavorable stigma attached to box wine, like lawyers or people obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons. But, box wine is often a party staple. This is because it’s inexpensive, it’s convenient, the leftovers won’t spoil, and even if you don’t enjoy the taste of it, many others do.

Box wine was once the laughing stock of the wine world: people often equated it with cheap wine, it was only purchased by those who had a cash flow problem, and cases of Pinot Noirs were often found pointing and laughing, mocking the box wine from the comfort of their glass bottles. However, over the years this stigma has gone down the drain, and the box wine of today now stores a variety of wine, including wines that are premium.

Recipe Source Online: Serving Wine at Holiday Parties

I find the image of bottles of Pinot Noir pointing and laughing at the lowly box is simultaneously amusing and mildly disturbing.

technorati tags: box, boxed, cask, wine, holiday, party