Can wine in a box ever be as good as a bottle?
Yes, says our critic. And, even better, it’ll stay fresh for weeks
Do You have a wine box in your fridge? I don’t personally — rightly or wrongly, wine boxes don’t have the best of reputations for quality, and since I am lucky enough to work in the wine business, I have no shortage of bottled wine to taste.
until now, that is. Because the wine box — that staple of the Seventies, which fell from grace after it came to be regarded as a vessel for cheap and nasty, mass-produced party alcohol — is back.
repackaged, improved and in a wider variety of formats, ‘bag-in-a-box’ wines are being sold as an eco-friendly alternative to bottled wines, and it’s claimed that they are of better quality than in the days of old.
the first indication of this clumsy wine container’s renaissance came a few years ago when one of london’s top wine-bar chains, vinoteca, introduced a range of top-end, five-litre wine boxes.
I tasted the wines and asked the pertinent questions. the replies flowed along with the wine: this is the most efficient form of packaging with the lowest carbon footprint; yes, it brings an economy of scale to the purchase, making it cheaper; and, yes, they only sell delicious wine whatever the format.
the wine wasn’t bad, although even back then it worked out at around £9 for 75cl, the size of a typical bottle of wine.
But it’s also claimed that the wine box stays fresh for between four and six weeks. Now you’re talking — this really is like having a bar in your own kitchen! Perhaps the revival in buying wine boxes is justified.
well, up to a point, because most would balk at paying £9 for an everyday wine — you are never going to get a really great quality offering in a wine box — since that’s nearly twice the price of an average bottle sold in the uK.
the technology behind bag-in-a-box wines is certainly much improved. as oxygen is the enemy of any wine over a prolonged period, the wine box is a clever device, shrinking as it dispenses its contents and minimising any contact of the wine with air. I can certainly vouch for a huge leap forward in the science of both bottling and bagging wine, and this all but eliminates spoilage in wine boxes as long as you finish the wine well within its drinking lifetime — often labelled on the packaging.
My advice is to try to empty the box, or ‘ pouch’ — the even more stripped down, ‘naked’ version of a wine box — within a fortnight or three weeks rather than the four to six weeks claimed for safe drinking.
If you enjoy a small glass of wine each evening with dinner, a 1.5 litre box will ideally last you 12 days and a 2.25 litre box will stretch to 18.
So, wIth advances in technology leading to ease of use and decent longevity, and with eyecatching designs making wine boxes more attractive than before, what else do you need to look out for? the obvious two factors are value for money and taste.
while wine across the board has become cleaner, fresher, fruitier and more palatable over the past decade, particularly at lower prices, I refuse to recommend boring, lacklustre, characterless plonk.
Sadly, however, because people instinctively don’t want to pay a lot for a wine box, there are far too many dreary examples out there.
I conducted a huge tasting of boxes and pouches for you, and here are my top ten.
Gone are the days when you had to bring your calculator with you to convert the price of the box into an equivalent bottle size in order to see if you were being ripped off, because virtually all wine boxes these days have images on the side showing you ‘how many bottles are inside’.
Most have a sell-by date of a year or so, but do look for this if you are worried, and then clear a space in your fridge or on your kitchen counter, because there’s no question that wine boxes are a coming trend.
MY TOP TEN: WHITES
2015 Fairtrade Chardonnay Semillon, South Africa (£16.99, 3 l box, £4.25 75cl bottle equivalent, Co-op) wIth the added benefit of being a Fairtrade wine, this is a decent, raspy, dry white, with fresh pineapple notes among the citrus theme and an admirably long finish.
2015 Ca’Mutti Garganega Pinot Grigio delle Venezie, Italy (£15.99, 2.25 l box, £5.33 75cl bottle equivalent, Waitrose) thIS IS a superb wine, which cunningly blends the Soave grape Garganega with the worldfamous Pinot Grigio to make a crisp, dry, classic Italian white wine. No more, no less, but this is really great value and it passes my deliciousness test with flying colours.
Non-vintage Garganega Pinot Grigio, Veneto, Italy (£9.50, 1.5 l pouch, £4.75 75cl bottle equivalent, Asda) to all intents and purposes this is a similar wine to the Ca’Mutti Garganega, but it is less expensive and lacks a little character. But it is still spot on flavour-wise, is refreshing, and one of the best picnic wines here because it will chill quickly, since it is a pouch made of plastic and not a box.
2015 Pheasant Gully Semillon Chardonnay, South Eastern Australia (£13, 1.5 l pouch, £6.50 75cl bottle equivalent, Marks & Spencer) thIS is one of the mid-priced pouch wines available, but unlike most of the light styles this one has more weight and intensity. It’s nice to see a maincourse, dry white in this format and the touches of wild honey and nut on the nose add allure and complexity of flavour.
2015 Mud House Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand (£15, 1.5 l box, £7.50 75cl bottle equivalent, Waitrose). You very rarely see big name brands in boxes, but the eagle- eyed among you will fall over this wine because you will have spotted that it is fine enough to have been featured (in a bottle) in my regular weekend magazine column on Saturdays! Not cheap, but worth every penny, this is the epitome of NZ Sauvignon and it seems to lose none of its pizzazz in this format. Nice box design, too!
2015 Merlot, Chile (£12, 2.25 l box, £4, 75cl bottle equivalent, Morrisons) everY now and then a ‘ chalk board’ wine steps up and amazes me. this is my name for the Morrisons house wines with their chalky, white lettering and they put as much effort into sourcing these as they do the dearer bottles. this is a typically fruitdriven, no-nonsense Merlot and it is a cracking price, so if you need a red no-brainer, this is it.
Non-vintage Malbec, Central Valley, Chile (£9.50, 1.5 l pouch, £4.75, 75cl bottle equivalent, Asda) a lIttle rough around the edges, but Malbec is not a polished grape variety, preferring to parade earthiness and spice over glossiness and sheen. I like this wine’s attitude — and you will enjoy it with hearty fare.
2015 Ca’Mutti Cabernet Corvina delle Venezie, Italy (£15.99, 2.25 l box, £5.33, 75cl bottle equivalent, Waitrose) the red partner to my cheeky white is an even more impressive beast. Made from the Bordeaux grape Cabernet Sauvignon and blended with the valpolicella grape Corvina, this wine packs cherry and cranberry notes into a lithe, smooth, medium-weight chassis and this makes it one of the more refreshing and fruit-driven wines in this top-ten line-up.
2015 GSM, Valencia, Spain (£12, 1.5 l pouch, £6, 75cl bottle equivalent, Marks & Spencer) Made from a blend of the hearty red grape trio Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre, hence the name, this is one of the most exciting and well-made of all of the reds available in this format. Juicy, rewarding and with mulberry notes and a dusting of cinnamon spice, this is a star wine. 2015 Cotes du Rhone Villages, France
(£17, 1.5 l pouch, £8.50 75cl bottle equivalent, Marks & Spencer) IF there is such a thing as a connoisseur’s wine pouch, this is it. the time-honoured rhone blend of Grenache and Syrah always makes great wine in the right hands and this is a suave example of a classy, classically- dimensioned, robust red rhone in a format which allows you to drink an occasional glass without feeling pressured to finish the bottle. It is a worthy entry here.