Why You Should Drink Wine in a Box
Boxed wine has a bad reputation. People look down on him because he doesn’t fit in a fancy bottle and think the contents are vile and cheap. While this may be true for some brands, a lot of wine in boxes is as good or even better than what you drink over a good dinner. Plus, it’s easy to transport, stays fresh longer, costs less and is better for the environment.
A couple of months ago, I sat down to an unusual homemade dinner in a beautiful home. My hostess asked if I wanted some wine, and when I said “damn it,” she grabbed an unassuming cardboard box disguised on a kitchen island, unrolled its spout and poured me a glass. I joked that I thought all the wine in the boxes was crap before I took my first sip. But I knew right away that I was wrong. I’m not a sommelier, but I’ve been to enough wineries and tastings in both California and France to understand the difference between decent wine and blends so bad that they shouldn’t even be cooked with. And that wine was good.
To get to the bottom of this mystery, I spoke to Tia Eshaw, a training sommelier who works for a leading distributor of wines and spirits (full disclosure: she’s also a close friend of mine who helps me choose the best drink). When I asked her about boxed wines when we sampled beer at the local brewery, she said, “Patrick, you’re drunk,” and then said that she would email me later. In her email, she explained that boxes as well as screw-top bottles are increasingly being used to produce quality wines, especially in markets under $ 20 but over $ 10. She went on to say that while boxed wines have long been associated with poor quality, they are just like traditional cork and bottled wines — there are good and bad.
The “bad” brands, Ashaw explains, are usually low-cost brands, such as those involved in the 2015 lawsuit for high arsenic concentrations. These brands included Franzia, Sutter Home, Beringer, Flipflop, Fetzer, Korbel, Trapiche, and Charles Shaw (Two-Buck Chuck). But that lawsuit was ultimately dismissed in the California courts , and by all accounts, even with the trace amounts of arsenic found in wine boxes, you’ll have to drink a lot of it to harm you . If you drink that much wine, I would say arsenic bothers you the least. However, Ashaw advises you to stay away from boxed wines that cost less than ten dollars if that bothers you.
But there are already “good” box wines. Brands such as Black Box, Bandit Boxes, Bota Box, and Big House are good examples of quality wines sold in cartons. Well, the bag. A bag that comes in a box. Apparently they are called BIBs (bag-in-box). But why buy a BIB when every grocery store has shelves of traditional wine bottles? First, you get more wine for less – about four bottles in one box. This is not because the wine is of inferior quality, but because boxed wines do not have that kind of overhead when it comes to packaging, materials and shipping. The traditional bottling process is expensive and requires glass, corks and foil. These materials are heavy and therefore more expensive to transport bottles. In addition, the boxes are easy to carry, easy to stack, and take up less space to transport.
Eshaw notes that out of a decent 750 ml bottle of wine, which costs between $ 15 and $ 20, you get about five glasses of wine. A decent boxed brand will give you about 20 glasses of equal quality wine – and yes, the good ones pass the taste test – for the same price. That’s four times the wine! If you think, “Oh, this is too much, I can never get through all this until it messes up,” firstly, you are a liar, and secondly, you have nothing to worry about. anyway. Boxed wine can last up to eight weeks after opening and even longer in the refrigerator. An open bottle of wine lasts about a week before it turns sour.
Plus, boxed wine is better for the environment . Cardboard requires much less energy to produce than glass, and the cardboard and plastic bags in which the wine is stored are recyclable. In addition, their light weight makes it easier to transport, so in the long term there is less carbon dioxide emissions during transport. And because boxed wine stays fresher longer, you’re less likely to waste convenience foods that soured before you finish. So, if you’re looking for an environmentally friendly drink, boxed wine is the best choice.
The only drawback is that the wine in the box has an expiration date. For example, wine in a box will go bad if you don’t open it. The plastic bags found in most wine boxes are made of polyethylene – which is BPA- free, if you’re wondering – and are much more porous than traditional bottles. If you want the wine was pleasant to the taste, you need to consume wine in a box in a period of six to eight months . However, if you are not a wealthy collector or sommelier, you can try the box. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. Plus, you won’t notice the difference anyway .