The Fine Side of Boxed Wine

When Black Box Wine sent over two boxes of wine, some carafes, plastic glasses, a wood boxed-wine crate and instructed me to have a party, I thought, oh hell. We still don't have a couch (and are presently sitting on two lawn chairs in the living room), so it didn't seem like the best-ever idea to host a soiree. I asked Ken if we could have it as his house and then Ken asked Stacey if we could have it at her house (serious delegating going on here), which is how I ended up co-hosting a party with a gal I had only met three times EVER. Luckily, she's amazing and made an amazing dinner while I just showed up with my boxes of wine (classy!), a couple blocks of cheese, and a box of French truffles. I think I am going to plan all my parties like this in the future.

We served up the boxed wine, a Shiraz and a Chardonnay, and discussed the wine. Everyone sampled the Shiraz first and decided that it was:

+ Consistent
+ Peppery
+ Smooth
+ Way better than you'd expect from wine in a box

What? This came from a box?!

We tried the Chardonnay next, but had consumed too much wine by that point to have an intelligent discussion about the aroma and bouquet, so we decided that it went well with spinach salad and fresh grilled vegetables.

Apparently, though, it was good enough TO DRINK STRAIGHT FROM THE BOX.

Wine Spectator said that “rising quality and hard-to-beat prices have wine lovers rethinking an overlooked category”.

I had such a fun time trying wine from a box and the event coincided perfectly with my studies.

Since we are learning about wine this month, here are a couple of notes about boxed wine: although in a vacuum sealed bag, boxed wine will typically only last two or three weeks in the fridge after opening and will begin to lose quality after open. Also, cardboard and plastic allow in minute amounts of oxygen, so they should be consumed within a year of packaging. In other words: boxed wine is meant for drinking!

The wine and party favors were provided by Black Box wine and the folks at BzzzAgent.

Comments

[Leah]

ah, dang, I was hoping you'd be giving away some yummy wine. I've been meaning to check out boxed wine but need to work through our backlog of random other wines first. We've got a couple of wines that are around the one-year mark, and I want to drink them all up fairly soon.