Until I can afford a case of Château Haut-Brion to call my very own, I’m not afraid to spend my drinking budget on wine that’s (a) cheap yet (b) not crappy. And by the way, “cheap” means less than $15, but more often, less than $10. Enter what’s apparently supposed to be the next trend for green hipsters, if it’s not already: boxed wine. Or, for marketing purposes, “alternatively-packaged wine.” The companies that make this stuff definitely have their work cut out for them in terms of advertising—-they’ll have to come up with tag lines catchier than “Boxed wine: No longer just for your drunk Aunt Fran!” Or: “Seriously, we’re not like Franzia. Seriously.”
Tonight I tried out Three Thieves’ “Bandit” line of wines, which is packaged in 100% recyclable materials. They’re actually pretty cute: they remind me of the boxes of juice that people buy at the supermarket in France:
They retail for $9, but I found them on sale for $7 at the grocery store. For a true cheapskate, they’re brilliant, because you get the equivalent of a bottle-and-a-third of regular wine (these boxes are 1 liter). I tried the cab sauvignon, under the theory that you’re much more likely to have terrible cheap white wine than terrible cheap red wine.
The verdict is that it’s not great, but it’s not terrible. Too oaky for my tastes, and it just doesn’t really taste like that much at all. All those adjectives on my tasting notes cheat sheet (robust…balanced…licorice-y, and so on) don’t really apply. It’s just…red wine. For the price, I’d sooner upgrade to a cheap Chilean cab and maintain my dignity.
But, much like the screw cap was introduced to the low-to-mid-range wine consumer gradually, maybe boxed wine just needs some time to figure out its place in the market. Interestingly, this article from 2006 says that the cost of making a glass wine bottle has jumped because the cost of natural gas, which is used to make said bottles, has risen precipitously. Like insisting upon corks for all bottles of wine, insisting on glass bottling for all wine—from rotgut jug wine to $500 a bottle Burgundies—isn’t practical or sustainable. Here’s hoping that what’s inside the box improves, and that established winemakers get on board sooner rather than later.
Have you been to Vino yet? Just read a review of it in Imbibe and it sounds like a perfect store for you, with a heavy emphasis on quality, affordable wines.