After my granddaughter’s high school graduation party, I was given a 3 liter (4 bottles) boxed red wine that was left over.I
had actually ignored it till last month when I found it the corner of my cellar and thought we had better start consuming it.I
liked it with tacos, meatloaf and spaghetti.Then last month
I spoke to a women’s club, and the concern of boxed white wine turned up. So, let’s discuss boxed wine.The year is 1965, and Dr. Thomas Angrove of Australia patents a 4.5 liter(1 gallon)sealed polyethylene bladder that was filled with red wine that suit a box. In the beginning, customers needed to snip open the corner of the bag, put the wine, then somehow
seal it and stuff it back into the box. 2 years later on, Charles Malpas of Penfolds Wines patented an airtight tap, sealed onto a similar type bladder and, voila! Boxed red wine was born. In Australia, due
to the difference in how white wine is taxed compared to other alcohols, boxed white wine is often the least expensive form. Some reports suggest as much as 50%of white wine is offered this way.But this time
frame doesn’t cut it for Americans. Scholle Packaging of Chicago, IL, is credited with developing the bag-in-box format in 1950 with a style initially for the safe transport of battery acid.Typical box red wine– well, technically it’s red wine in a bag, then in a box– come in a wide variety of volumes. The reality that wine is dispensed from the versatile bag without adding air significantly decreases the opportunity of oxidation of the red wine. Compared to white wine in a bottle which ought to be consumed within days of opening, box wine is not subject to cork taint and will not ruin for around three to four weeks after breaking the seal.Bag-in-box wines are not meant for cellaring and must be taken in within the producer printed service life
. Mine stated finest by 2021. Wear and tear may be obvious 12 months after this date. This, paired with an increased cultural interest in environmentally recyclable product packaging, has a growing appeal with the younger red wine consumers.Box wine started appearing on U.S. shelves during the 1980s as a more convenient and longer-lived format to the container wines that were popular inthe 1970s.
Boxed white wines were considered bottom-of-the-barrel, bulk red wines. Many box white wine with generic varietal names like merlot, riesling and sweet, quickly lost favor with growing red wine sophisticates. Likewise, the red wine wasn’t vintage dated, nor did it state where the wine was
from. They do not suit the refrigerator and major sippers would not go near anything that didn’t can be found in a bottle and a cork. Sadly, as bottled red wine grew in quality and high-end stature in the U.S., together with developing wine drinkers’palates, box white wine stopped working to keep pace.Depending on where you live, search in the red wine aisle. Much of package red wine in the U.S. is quite excellent. So, when White wine Viewer publication just recently evaluated 39 box white wines, 37 of them received a score greater than 80 points, it’s recognition for the wholebox white wine category.According to
Nielsen Co. data, renewal of boxed red wine and environmental awareness on the part of consumers is resulting in a resurgence.Boxed wines now
comprise 13.3%of the wine market, with 3-liter boxes the favorite last year. Aside from wine, packaging is undergoing a revolution.
Box white wine has a lighter ecological footprint than red wine in glass. The minimized packaging, lighter weight and stacking ability, easier to transfer due to the fact that you can fit more on a truck– all those costs are being passed on to customers, and they are keeping in mind. However another modification in the production
method of bag-in-box wines to a mix of paper, aluminum and polyethylene made this packaging a lot more tough to recycle, so not all municipalities accept it for recycling, and it ends up in the landfills.In theory, box white wine is a terrific idea. A bladder in a box where no light or
air can get to it, no cork taint, best for parties, self-serve, once opened, it can remain fresh for six weeks. What more might you ask for?A lot. How about much better red wine, better selection, less advertising on the box and more info with names of the terriors, appellation or the area where the grapes are grown, makers and vintage, the winery that made the red wine? I Googled the maker of
mine, and it was a warehouse in Modesto, CA. How about bag-in-boxes that can age?Chris Leon, owner of the Brooklyn, NY, white wine store Leon & Sons, said,”A box is the perfect choice for somebody who wants simply a splash of wine occasionally. I even understand some white wine experts who will keep a box in the refrigerator for when they just want a quick glass.” Box white wine or bottled red wine, it’s still red wine that you can enjoy whenever, however, in whatever you desire. The option is yours.Happy Drinking, Chris