Box Wines
A wine blog with news and reviews of affordable wines

Price: $10
Maker: Peter Vella Wines, Modesto, California
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Packaging: 5 liter box, push-button spigot
Alcohol: 11%
Our Rating: 6 out of 10

Peter Vella Cabernet Sauvignon is an ultra-cheap box wine - we found a 5-liter box on sale for less than ten bucks. We have studiously avoided these offerings from Vella and Franzia because we’ve invariable been disappointed. But, it was on sale, and this box proudly exhibited a gold medal from Chef’s Best - the coveted (?) “Best Taste” award for 2007. Before we knew it, a box had somehow found its way into the shopping cart. As it turns out, we could have saved the trouble of lugging this box home. This wine is light-bodied for a Cab - it weighs in at a mere 11% alcohol, and the color is a rather light ruby shade. The flavor, unfortunately, was mostly oaked prunes. Pouring a glass and letting it breathe for a while slightly improved the flavor, but we’d consider this acceptable only for starving college students looking to buy massive quantities of wine for not much money.

So what’s up with the Chef’s Best medal? We checked out the website, and it is stated that the tests are conducted in a blind tasting process. What isn’t clear is exactly how products are chosen to be tasted, or what percent end up earning the “Chef’s Best” designation. The site says that “we judge all qualifying leading national brands.” Was this Peter Vella Cabernet Sauvignon judged against just, say, Franzia and Almaden (who offer similar package sizes), or did it include other cabs in smaller boxes or bottles? It’s hard to imagine this wine beating out, say, a Killer Juice or Black Box Cab, but of course those cost more and might have been excluded. And a cheap $5 bottle is far more costly than the Vella wine. Even Two Buck Chuck Cabernet Sauvignon looks expensive by comparison. If the Chef’s Best tried to compare only equivalently priced wines, the would have been hard-pressed to find more than one or two wines in the same range as the Vella.

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Wine Cube Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz 2006Price: $10
Maker: Wine Cube
Variety: Shiraz
Packaging: 1.5 liter box
Alcohol: 13%
Our Rating: 8 out of 10

is the first wine in Target’s WineCube series we have tried in a while. We did try Wine Cube Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz 2004, and we commented, “The aroma is mild, with berry and oak notes. The flavor is straightforward and juicy, with just a bit of oak and spice to add interest. This wine doesn’t have a lot of structure, but it’s the kind of red that pleases crowds. It’s easy to drink, and would be a fine cookout wine.” The 2006 fits that description fairly well. We found a bit of leather in the nose, and the tannins seemed slightly more prominent. Otherwise, the 2006 was quite similar.

The 1.5 liter cube is a great packaging concept. It seems impossible that this compact box could hold two full bottles, but it does. And, at only 1.5 liters, glass-a-day drinkers won’t get bored by having to consume 3 liters of the same stuff one glass at a time.

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Health Magazine ran an article in their October issue, “The best vino to go.” The subtitle was, “New boxed wines are honestly worth drinking.” The article doesn’t say much other than giving an explanation of how the bag-in-box concept works and extolling the longevity of box wines. They mention Black Box Wines and FreeRange Wines as a couple of good alternatives.

There’s nothing too spectacular about this article, but it’s nice to see mainstream media making the point that today’s boxed wines aren’t the plonk of a decade or two ago. In particular, Health should reach a large group of consumers who want to take the “glass a day” approach to red wine for heart health.

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Price: $14
Maker: Imported by International Cellars, Madera, California
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Packaging: 3 liter box, push-button spigot
Alcohol: 13%
Our Rating: 8 out of 10

Box Star Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 is a relatively new mass-market offering, and it’s not bad. This Cab has a licorice and berry nose, and a flavor with cherries, chocolate, and a bit of clove. The finish has some oak and soft tannins. Don’t expect a lot of complexity, but it’s certainly drinkable.

This boxed wine fared reasonably well in a blind tasting organized by the Austin Chronicle. We couldn’t learn much about the Box Star brand, other than the fact that its wines are from Australia. There’s no website listed, which in our opinion is a strategic error. People want to know more about the wines they buy, and in particular about a box wine they’ll be living with for the better part of a month (if they are moderate drinkers and don’t have any parties planned).

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Price: $15
Maker: Hardy’s
Varietal: Shiraz
Packaging: 3 liter box, push-button spigot
Alcohol: 13.5%
Our Rating: 8 out of 10

Hardy’s Shiraz 2006 is an adequate if unspectacular boxed wine. It has a nice aroma of spice and licorice. The flavor is rounded and fruity, but not all that complex. The fruit has an unusual prune character along with some cherries; there’s oak and faint pepper in the finish. This wine isn’t offensive, but it kind of fails to excite.

This is part of Hardy’s Stamp of Australia series:

Hardys Stamp of Australia offers one of Australia’s most popular, easy to drink range of wines. Stamp of Australia continues the tradition of fine winemaking that Hardys have become recognised for throughout the world, by offering great wine at an affordable price. The Stamp range is identified by the original Australian postage stamp, dating back to 1937, which is featured on all Stamp of Australia wines.

Would we serve this Shiraz with a fine dinner? Probably not. Would we use it for party fare, or glass-of-red-wine-a-day drinking? Sure.

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Price: $9
Maker: Corbett Canyon Vineyards
Varietal: Chardonnay
Packaging: 3 liter box, twist spigot
Alcohol: 12.5%
Our Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Corbett Canyon Chardonnay 2005 was a favorite in Wine Blogging Wednesday #31. Despite its modest price - ounce for ounce, it’s cheaper than Two Buck Chuck from Charles Shaw except in California (where Two Buck Chuck really costs $2 a bottle) - Citizen Wine’s blind tasting event picked the Corbett Canyon Chardonnay as one of the best whites. We’re not big Chardonnay drinkers, but we finally decided to sample this wine. The nose wasn’t overwhelming, but had cut grass and tart apple notes. On the palate, this wine was crisp and refreshing, with Granny Smith apple and mild pear notes leading into a slightly acidic finish.

Corbett Canyon may not be the finest or most complex Chardonnay available, but for under $10 for a 3-liter cask it’s a steal. It’s fine for party use or for glass-a-day drinkers who can’t put much of a dent in a 750 ml bottle and hate to see wine spoil. I suppose the fact that a cheap Chardonnay can be fairly decent shouldn’t be much of a surprise after Charles Shaw Chardonnay took top honors at the California State Fair wine competition.

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Price: $16
Maker: Vinalia SA, Mendoza, Argentina
Varietal: Malbec
Packaging: 3 liter box, pushbutton spigot
Alcohol: 13.5%
Our Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Vaca Morada Malbec is the first new boxed red wine we’ve found in a while, and we’re glad we did. This non-vintage wine (termed a 2006 by the importer) from Argentina has a leathery nose backed up with raspberries and spice. The flavor is juicy and well balanced, with dark berry notes combining with chocolate and light pepper. Light acidity perks up the finish and balances the fruit. Vaca Morada Malbec is a pleasant and accessible wine that will please a variety of red wine drinkers.

“Vaca Morada” is Spanish for “purple cow” - an apt name for this reddish purple wine. Oddly for a “critter” name, there’s no cow image on the American import box - that would seem to limit its marketing impact when stacked against competition like Funky Llama, Yellow Tail, and the rest of the critter crew. The Vinalia website seems to be mostly under construction. One thing we find encouraging about this wine is that it’s the first boxed wine not from the U.S. or Australia that we’ve seen in our local market (which is admittedly limited). It’s great to see both a less common varietal like Malbec as well as a less common wine exporter like Argentina showing up on the neighborhood shelves, and even better to have it be a fine wine for parties or glass-a-day dinner companion.

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Just about every box wine maker indicates on their packaging that the wine won’t spoil for weeks after opening. Most claim a month, and some even longer periods. Now, the Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher of the Wall Street Journal have put those claims to the test, and the news is good for box wine fanciers. In Boxed Wines Face The Six-Week Challenge, the WSJ Tastings duo describes how they tested box wines for freshness over aging periods of up to a month ad a half.

Their procedure was fairly straightfoward. Each week for a total of six weeks, they opened boxes of Fisheye Chardonnay and Fisheye Shiraz, and then stored the boxes in their refrigerator. Then, they did a blind taste test of the wine from all twelve boxes to see how the wines had fared during their various lengths of post-opening storage. The results were heartening:

The Chardonnays, on the whole, continued to taste pleasant enough but a bit harsh. Three smelled and tasted notably sulfuric. All tasted of pineapple — sometimes sweet pineapple and sometimes watery pineapple. One was clearly the best. It tasted riper, fresher and cleaner than the rest. This turned out to be the newest box, the one we had just opened. But our second favorite was the wine we’d opened the third week of the experiment, and our third favorite was the very first we’d opened, all those weeks before. Overall, the boxes we opened first and last were the best; the boxes opened in the middle weeks were the ones that tasted and smelled less fresh. But none of the boxes tasted oxidized or obviously off. We’ve tried some wines by the glass at tony wine bars that tasted far more over the hill.

We sampled the Shirazes next. Once again, none of them was obviously oxidized. The difference among them was that a couple tasted vibrant and alive — these were wines we would take to a picnic ourselves — while others had the same basic tastes, but they’d lost life and seemed somewhat dull and flat. In any event, none of them tasted as sweet, alcoholic and heavy as many jug wines on the market and even many under-$20 wines in bottles.

When we checked the bottom of the boxes, it turned out that our favorite Shiraz had been opened in week No. 4 and our second favorite had been the very first cask we opened. Our third favorite was the freshest box. Once again, it appeared that the boxes from the fifth and sixth weeks — those open for one week and two weeks — were the most problematic. Call it a dumb period.

So, the bottom line: It’s true. The wine really does keep for six weeks. It has its ups and downs in your refrigerator, but it will keep fine. Would we keep a box of wine in our refrigerator for six weeks? Well, no. Today, there are so many interesting, affordable wines on the shelves that we’d rather taste several wines than one wine in a big box. That said, the FishEye Shiraz, at the equivalent of $4 a bottle, is a perfectly nice wine for a party this summer — and, yes, if you have any left over, you can keep it around until the dog days of summer without it turning hairy.

We can’t say that we’re surprised, though we’ve never kept a box around for six weeks. Storing even red wines in the refrigerator if the storage time is likely to be many weeks is no doubt a good idea. Another tip is to avoid introducing air into the plastic bag that collapses around the shrinking wine inside the outer cardboard box - see Beware the Burp.

All in all, we give big kudos to Gaiter and Brecher for putting their previous less-than-satisfactory experiences with box wines aside and conducting a fair and realistic test. Coverage like this can only help boxed wine gain credibility, and encourage wineries to put ever-better product in convenient bag-in-box packaging.

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I caught a story on NPR yesterday, EU Agrees to Protect Napa Wines’ Good Name, that confirmed that Napa Valley wine makers will finally get satisfaction in the European Union. A text story on the same topic is, Napa Vineyards Gain Special Status:

Just like the protected regions of France’s wine country, at long last, the wineries of Napa now have their own protected region as recognized by the European Union. We joined the celebration at the German Consulate today to learn what this means for Napa’s 400 wineries…
The geographic indication, or G.I. status, has another impact. From this point forward, no company in the European Union can register Napa Valley for wine. The E.U. is an important market for wine exports. Fifty-two percent of all California wine goes to the E.U., about one-fourth of that is from Napa Valley.

What’s good new for the fine wine makers of Napa Valley may prove problematic for U.S. makers of cheap wines. Low end jug wines from Gallo and box wines from Franzia, among many others, feature names like “Burgundy” which is also a geographic indication with restricted use in the E.U. It’s likely that pressure will mount on these terroir poachers to either use wine from the region indicated (unlikely) or change their labeling (unlikely without a fight).

Here at Box Wines, we don’t think seeing some of the “Hearty Burgundy” and similar labels disappear would be any great loss. In fact, if the plonk disappeared completely it wouldn’t be missed (except, perhaps, by penniless college students and the occasional bargain-seeking party animal. (The main risk we would see is to the reputations of the varietals used in those wines if the labels are changed to a varietal designation.) Virtuall all of the better boxed wine seems to be compliant with accepted geographic designations. A quick scan of the boxes we’ve encountered in the last year shows that almost all use varietal labeling. The Free Range Red Bordeax and Free Range White Bordeaux are exceptions, but they really do originate in the Bordeaux region of France.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think there will ultimately be restrictions on U.S. winemakers that prevent using geographic labels inappropriately, but there may be either “grandfathering” for existing labels or at least a phaseout period of some years.

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Price: $17
Maker: Delicato Family Vineyards
Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon
Packaging: 3 liter box, pushbutton spigot
Alcohol: 13.3%
Our Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Delicato Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 was another vaguely disappointing offering from a brand that proudly proclaims its list of gold medal awards. The nose is mild but spicy. The flavor is slightly reminiscent of some of the 5-liter box wines, with a slightly sweet plumminess and chocolate and a moderately spicy finish. The wine, in our opinion, doesn’t show much varietal character - we aren’t finding what we’d like to see in a good Cab. This is one that you might have to try for yourself, as the wine isn’t entirely unpleasant and may appeal to some.

We checked out the Delicato website, and while the latest Shiraz has garnered some favorable attention, we couldn’t find any awards for Delicato Cabernet Sauvignon 2005. Their notes talk about, “rich, well-developed flavors of cherry, blackberry and a hint of oak to compliment the fruit.” That seems rather unlike what we found in this particular box. Closer to our thoughts were those of Paxton at the Destination Unknown blog, who noted, “it’s missing the complexity that would be necessary to make it a good wine, though there is a dark plum flavor beneath the astringency.”

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