Box Wine: Still a Long Way to Go

No doubt you’ve heard the same claims I have:  Box wine has come a long way since the horrible “Chablis” that Mom used to keep on the counter and pour over ice. 

Box wine got its start in Australia in the mid-1960s when Tom Angove invented the rather clever packaging.  A polyethylene bag with a plastic tap is placed inside a box for support.  The typical box holds the equivalent of four bottles of wine, though some hold up to 50 percent more than that.  Despite the large volume, the box wine package is considerably lighter than glass bottles.  One big advantage of this type of packaging is that the design of the bag and tap ensure that no oxygen gets into the bag after it is opened, which means that the wine lasts 4-6 weeks after opening – much longer than the typical bottle.

Box wine first became popular in the United States in the 1980s.  Though it was never synonymous with high quality, it is cheap and easy to store.  And say those who like it, it’s consistent.  You always know what to expect when you open the box. 

I have always resisted drinking box wine for two primary reasons:
  I generally believed it to be inferior, and I don’t like making a four-bottle commitment to any one wine.  After all, what if it’s inferior?  I don’t want to be stuck drinking a terrible wine for 4-6 weeks! 

Recently, though, I decided to give it another look.  In the last couple of years, there has been a glut of good wine grapes from top wine-producing regions – more than the fine wine industry can absorb.  This has resulted in the production of more inexpensive, quality wines than ever before.  So it seemed possible that the claims I had been hearing about improvements in box wines quality just might be plausible. 

I decided to put box wine to the test – or to the taste.  My husband and I invited some friends over with a request that each couple bring a box wine.  We suggested they bring their favorite, or, if they had no experience with box wine, we recommended they choose a favorite varietal (type of grape) so that they wouldn’t mind taking the leftovers home.

We ended up with five wines – four reds and one white:  Hardy’s Wine Box Southeast Australia Chardonnay; Corbett Canyon Pinot Noir; 2006 Fish Eye California Shiraz; 2008 Bota Box California Shiraz; and Cube 2007 California Cabernet.  All but one of them are available in our local stores.

Before I tell you how the tasting went, a few things are worth noting.  First, as you can tell, not all of the box wines were from a particular vintage year.  The chardonnay and pinot noir were likely a blend of several years.  Second, although most of the wines disclosed the origin of the grapes from which the wine was made, the Corbett Canyon did not.  Typically that means the grapes came from more than one place.  Finally, I cannot tell you the price of the wines because really, it would have been rude to ask!  (My surveillance of local stores, however, suggests that the prices ranged from $14.99 to $17.99.)

We conducted the tasting blind so that I (the pourer) was the only one who knew the order in which the wines were tasted. (Although the chardonnay, being the only white, was pretty obvious.) 

There were a few things on which everyone agreed.  We all thought the wines were true enough to their variety and their age that my guess on the proper order in which to taste them was absolutely correct, even though I chose the order without ever having tasted a single one.  We also all agreed that no single wine was bad enough that everyone hated it.  In my experience, that’s actually a little unusual – there’s usually at least one stinker in every “home” tasting.

We used a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best.  The results were as follows (listed from highest average score to lowest average score):

Cube Cabernet:  2.5.  Although one person really disliked this wine, it received consistently decent scores from all the other tasters.  Some of the comments were “drinkable,” “tasted black cherries,” and “a little sour.”

Fish Eye Shiraz:  2.43.  This, too, was a decent wine with tasters describing it as “bright,” “tannic but not unbearably so,” “spicy and dry,” and “better than wine no. 1 (the Corbett Canyon).”

Corbett Canyon Pinot Noir:  2.28.  This wine would have been lower were it not for one taster who really liked it and described it as “robust and yummy.”  Others described it as “burnt,” “thin, watery and sour,” “acidic,” and “thin and underdeveloped.”

Bota Box Shiraz:  2.21.  Personally, I found this wine to be one of the worst I’ve ever tasted that didn’t have an actual flaw (i.e., spoilage).  It was sweet and hot at the same time.  Others described it as “sour,” “light,” “spicy and dry,” “thin, dry, heartburn,” and “moderately acceptable.”

Hardy’s – 1.57.  No one liked this wine, especially me.  I found it oddly lacking in any fruit flavors.  And those who like oaky, buttery chardonnays were sorely disappointed.  The tasters described it as “flat,” “sweet,” “watery,” and “thin.”

After tasting these wines and listening to the comments from my fellow tasters, I concluded that my bias against box wine is both legitimate and, perhaps, a little unfair.  None of the wines was especially interesting or good.  But on the other hand, none of them was horrible.  Not a single wine was one I would choose to serve to guests with a meal.  On the other hand, at least two of them were decent enough and priced attractively enough that I could see using them for a large event when wine is just an afterthought and not the main event.

The biggest problem with the wines was one I thought I had managed: what to do with the leftovers. Although the plan was that each guest would return home with his or her box, the guests somehow managed to slip away and leave the equivalent of 16 bottles of mediocre wine on my kitchen counter.  As my husband acidly observed, “even if I make stew with it, that will only take a cup or two.”

Fortunately my mother—she of the “Chablis” on ice from the 1980s—is coming to visit this week. As I said at the start, the one good thing about box wines is that they keep. If I keep the wine on the counter by the icemaker, it might just disappear before she leaves.