better box wine

Yes, it’s true, we’re blogging about box wine. Which you might remember as grocery-store plonk. But it turns out there’s nothing intrinsically inferior about box packaging — in fact it has many advantages over bottles and Australians and Europeans have been buying it in droves for years.

Box wine is really bag-in-a-box: the wine is stored in a Mylar bag with a spout attached. When you pour from the spout the bag acts as a vacuum, which means the wine doesn’t oxidize. An opened box can last for four weeks rather than spoiling in just a day or two. Wow!

Box wines also use less packaging than bottles so they cost less to ship, making them less expensive than a comparable bottled wine. All of which is better for the environment too.

Americans are finally catching wind of these advantages and we can buy better and better box wines now, such as those from Black Box, pictured above. For recommendations, check out this list of the top five box wines from Epicurious, this tasting from the San Francisco Chronicle, and this review from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Enjoy.

Technorati tags: box wine, black box, wine storage