There are a number of good box wines that have been on the market for years, including Bota Boxes and Black Boxes. They’ve been joined recently by a new generation of boxes that includes new varietals and organic wines and clever, eye-catching formats.
Jenny & Francois Selections, known for its natural wines, imports two rosé box wines. One is a certified-organic Provencal rosé, Comptoirs de Magdala. The other is a From the Tank Côtes du Rhône that hails from the Vignerons d’Estézargues, a relatively small cooperative dedicated to winemaking without additives. Estézargues also makes a red. The white From the Tank hails from the Domaine de la Patience in Languedoc. All From the Tank growers are working toward certified-organic status. The same wines that are sold in bottles for $15 cost $40 in a 4-bottle-equivalent box, a savings of $20.
Boxes from Italy have recently been arriving on our shores. Cantina di Soave, from Italy’s Veneto region, has paired a couple of the area’s most important grapes with grapes much more familiar to Americans in two 3-liter box wines called Duca del Frassino, which debuted in the US this year. Garganega (think Soave) is paired with Pinot Grigio, and Corvina (think Valpolicella and Bardolino) is paired with Cabernet Sauvignon. Both, at $20 for 3 liters (the equivalent of four bottles of wine), offer very good value.
This spring Underdog Wine Merchants launched the Octavin Home Wine Bar, an ambitious international collection of 10 wines in wonderfully designed octagonal cylinders. Wineberry America's Berry Boxes, with wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Beaujolais and the Rhône, are made using wood from sustainable forests and can be turned into lunch boxes and bird feeders. California's popular Red Truck sold its Chardonnay and its highly regarded red blend in mini-barrels made of recyclable plastic. A remake is in the works. (See my story Tacky No More: Making Boxed Wine Look Chic at Time.com for more about these boxes.)
Pouches: In July, Glenora Wine Cellars in New York’s Finger Lakes region became the first winery in the US to sell one of its wines, the Trestle Creek Riesling, in unbreakable, environmentally friendly 1.5-liter bag-without-box pouches. Each pouch, 7 in. x 10 in. x 2 in., is 98% wine and 2% packaging and boasts an 80% lower carbon footprint.
Lightweight Glass: Glass bottles too are becoming eco-friendlier. According to Joseph Cattaneo of the Glass Packaging Institute, reducing glass usage by 15% can lead to cost savings of up to 10%. So traditional glass wine bottles are down-weighting. Forward-thinking wineries, like California’s Fetzer Vineyards, which has long been in the forefront of environmental responsibility, are using them. All 23 million bottles produced by Fetzer annually now on average weigh 17 oz., 3.3 oz. less than their predecessors. The new bottles have reduced glass usage by 16%.
Chilean Montes Alpha and Classic Selection lines use eco-glass bottles that are 15% lighter than the standard. Boisset is jumping on the light-glass movement this fall with California Rabbits Hopping White and Hopping Red in lightweight bottles.
Even Champagne is downsizing, aiming to cut its carbon footprint 25% by 2020. In March the Comité Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne approved a new bottle that weighs 7% less than the standard one. (The bottles have to be strong enough to hold up under the pressure of the bubbles.) Most Champagne houses will use them for their non-vintage wines — 85% of the region’s output — within two years. The streamlined bottles will start to appear in the US in 2012.
Plastic Bottles: In 2008, Jean-Charles Boisset was named “Innovator of the Year” by Wine Enthusiast magazine. Boisset has indeed tried more packaging options than anyone else. Boisset Family Estates, for example, is a leader in wines bottled in PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, a polymer resin that’s a relative of polyester. The first two 750-ml PET wines marketed in the US were Boisset’s Yellow Jersey from France’s Languedoc region and Louis Bernard Bonus Passus from the Côtes du Rhône. All of Boisset’s 2008 Beaujolais Nouveau — both Mommessin and Bouchard Ainé & Fils — sent to the US arrived in PET. In 2009, Boisset’s Fog Mountain introduced its organic Merlot in plastic, making it the first 1-liter California wine to be sold in PET.
Plastic is used elsewhere too: Examples include Australia’s Wolf Blass and Little Penguin, New Zealand’s Yealands Estate and Spain’s Don Simon's Con Class. Because of its light weight, plastic is an obvious choice for airlines, which adopted it early on for their single-serving mini-wines.
Aluminum Bottles: Boisset opted for aluminum for Mommessin Beaujolais Grande Réserve. Wine in aluminum cools significantly faster than in glass and retains its chill longer. Mommessin also employed some clever technology: Because Beaujolais is best when slightly chilled, a Cooldot sticker on the bottle turned blue when the ideal temperature was reached. (Boisset is no longer using aluminum bottles because of their prohibitive cost.)
Cans: Leave it to out-of-the-box-thinking filmmaker turned winemaker Francis Ford Coppola to make the pedestrian can sexy with Coppola Winery’s Sofia Mini Blanc de Blancs. In 2004 Coppola introduced Sofia, the sparkling wine he created for his daughter's wedding, in bold, metallic-magenta colored cans. They’ve become a cool, sophisticated fashion accessory popular with young women at nightclubs.
In 2009 the Australian wine company Barokes (http://www.wineinacan.com) won a gold medal for its Cabernet Shiraz Merlot in a can at the Berlin Wine Trophy in Germany. It was the first time a canned wine ever received such recognition. In 2010 its Bubbly Chardonnay Semillon Bin 242 captured the same honor. All in all, Barokes wines in cans have won 87 medals at international wine competitions in the US and Europe.
Plastic Glasses: So far, Coppola hasn’t been able to do for plastic glasses what he did for cans. His Wines by the Glass ($4 a glass), which were created by Francis Ford Coppola Presents, were sold at the Giants' AT&T Park in San Francisco, where they were introduced in 2007. Filled with Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Grigio, these reusable plastic bistro glasses were sealed with a peel-off foil top. Unfortunately, they’ve been discontinued.
Currently James Martin, owner of Oregon’s Quenett Winery and Silver Salmon Cellars, sells wine in unbreakable, resealable, recyclable plastic glasses. Copa di Vino, launched in 2009, was inspired by packaging that impressed him on one of France’s bullet trains.
Bottom Line: Hopefully these containers will become more common as people realize their many benefits. If you don’t yet see them where you shop, ask for them!
©2010 Sharon Kapnick for SeniorWomen.com
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