Boxed wine FTW

I bought some Franzia Moscato. And I've got to say it's pretty good. 5L for $20 after taxes equals about $3 a bottle.

It's been proven that wine "experts" can't tell the difference between "crappy" boxed wine and the more expensive stuff.

Any of you like boxed wine?

I rarely get any wine other than boxed these days. I have tried several bottles of what was supposed to be "the good stuff," but I never could really tell the difference.

Yea, I am not a wine snob or discriminating taster. I grew up in an Italian-American home and had wine on the table every night. We drank Gallo red by the gallon. Today I use Franzia, Vella, and others. When I feel like something special I splurge on Black Box. All good.

I've found the quality of boxed wine to be much higher now than in the past. Bota Box has some nice offerings.

I enjoy Franzia chillable red and on ocassion, their sangria in boxes..

I once saw a "wine expert" say on television that the best bottle of wine she had ever had was a bottle of "vin ordinaire" she shared with a friend, sitting by the Seine river in Paris.

Drink wine with your friends and family. Drink what you like and don't worry about what is supposed to be the "best" wine. You will remember the circumstances more than the wine.

Cheers.

BlackBard said:

I once saw a "wine expert" say on television that the best bottle of wine she had ever had was a bottle of "vin ordinaire" she shared with a friend, sitting by the Seine river in Paris.

Drink wine with your friends and family. Drink what you like and don't worry about what is supposed to be the "best" wine. You will remember the circumstances more than the wine.

Cheers.

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This.

I say that both seriously and with tongue in cheek. Yes, real wine conni-sewers can taste all these little nuances between vintages and whatnot and of course just about anyone is going to notice the difference a tawny Port and Beaujolais, but your point is more important. The same style and vintage can be great to your palate one day and taste horrid the next time. It just does sometimes.

Yet a quiet evening at a little hole in the wall cafe with your best girl will remain in your thoughts much longer than the libation you consumed there.

I liked the 'Vin ordinaire' reference. I worked with a bloke who was stationed in Sicily while he was in the Navy. He told me one of the biggest treats he experienced was stopping at some little restaurant operated by mama and papa types. He noticed the old girl watching him intently from the kitchen as he took his first bite of her food. When he gave a little mmm that's good sound she lit up like a Christmas tree and broke into a huge smile. He said the vino they served was some local red that was unremarkable but completely satisfying in that setting. He didn't remember the wine but certainly her expression.

BlackBard said:

I once saw a "wine expert" say on television that the best bottle of wine she had ever had was a bottle of "vin ordinaire" she shared with a friend, sitting by the Seine river in Paris.

Drink wine with your friends and family. Drink what you like and don't worry about what is supposed to be the "best" wine. You will remember the circumstances more than the wine.

Cheers.

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+1000

And it has the added bonus, when you finish it you can blow the bag up for a pillow.

I agree. I have a couple of boxes of Ch. Petrus in the basement.

Some of the "wine experts can't tell the difference" comments are a bit overblown here, but I'll tell you this- the only reason to drink expensive wine is to learn what to look for in a fine example of the breed, so you may be able to identify good wines at all price points.

With only one exception I can remember, I've never been able to tell the difference between wine costing at most 15-20 bucks Canadian and the really fancy stuff. And that one exception was at a wine tasting, and bottles were so expensive it wouldn't have been worth it.

Besides the worst stuff - which is not always the cheapest - box wine is OK.

I tried Bota Box's red blend the other day. I had heard good things about Bota Box, but was not impressed. I find the red blend or "table" wines from most producers are often among their best offerings. But I was disappointed with the Bota. It was rather sweet and kind of one dimensional. I'm not expecting it to be a great wine -- and it wasn't exactly bad -- but it was not what I expected based on the hype.

Did I just pick the wrong one? Anyone have any opinion on whether I should try another Bota offering -- maybe one of their regular varietals?

The box just looks wrong on the dinner table. Fine china, crystal glass, and cardboard.

That's what the decanter is for. Black Box wines has some really nice reds, can't speak for their whites.

Ymmv!

ouch said:

I agree. I have a couple of boxes of Ch. Petrus in the basement.

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"Crates", Ouch. They are called "crates".

Manolo Tusk said:

I've never been able to tell the difference between wine costing at most 15-20 bucks Canadian and the really fancy stuff. ...

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I thought $15-$20 WAS the fancy stuff.

Well, I guess I need to add my two corks worth here. I love wine, for openers, and have consumed a vast number of reds and whites, from every price point in the market...wine with dinner every evening for 25+ years. Ones palette needs to be educated by experiencing wine from a very wide spectrum of price points, varietals, terroirs, etc. I believe there does come a point when one can most definately differentiate from the more simple boxed or table wines, to wines of real character, complexity, nuance, and true beauty and joy in experiencing them. Which is not to say that a simple box-o-wine can't work, just to say that there is a world of difference between that and wines moving up the scale.

Doc4 said:

I thought $15-$20 WAS the fancy stuff.

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For reasonable people, definitely. Like I said, this one wine (which they were selling, at a discount, at something like 60-90 bucks a bottle) was the only one beyond that where I thought "this is great". One of the wines at one of the tastings I attended was quite unpleasant - reminded me of cheap dry sherry.

Plus there are $7.95 a bottle wines that are pretty good.

One of the great things about the wine box technology is it keeps excess air out of a half-drunk box of wine, unlike a bottle which instantly replaces wine with air at every pour. I guess the biggest stumbling block to box wines is convincing people that other people will take good box wine seriously: vintners won't put good wine in boxes because customers won't pay "good wine prices" for box wines, and customers won't pay "good wine prices" for box wines because vintners won't put good wine in boxes. Hopefully that is changing.

Look up Robert Hodgson's experiment.

Basically the judges were given 4 samples. And they were told they were all different wines. But really 3 of the 4 were poured from the same bottle.

The expert judges rated all of the samples differently only because they were told it was 4 different samples