To stay with the booze theme that started yesterday I want to chat about Wine.
I saw an ad last night for a Premium white wine that you store in the fridge, dosen’t sound too bad until you find out its in a box that holds equal to 6 bottles, and it keeps them fresh for 8 weeks. They tried to hide the fact that it is a box of wine by calling it a cask, WTF? I’m a mini-wine snob, it just means that I won’t drink your crappy homemade wine. Don’t try to fool yourself, if you make your own wine there is no doubt that your wine sucks ass! Its just a fact of life. You can get a decent bottle of wine for $8-$12 if you do some decent research, so don’t brag that your wine costs $0.32 a bottle. Your not impressing me.
This reminds me of a dinner party we had at the Boultbee one night. As usual we took it pretty deep and my sad little supply of wine was running out in a hurry. We were still at the dinner table at midnight and had already drained 9 bottles of various quality. On a trip to the cellar (really its just a $18 wine rack in an unfinished basement) I noticed we only had 3 bottles left and to my dismay one of those was a homemade bottle that someone had given me. I open a new bottle in hope that we will all decide to go to a pub or everyone would bugger off and go home. No luck, I have to go to the “cellar” one more time. I bring up the last 2 bottles. I put the decent wine at my end of the table, I decant the homemade stuff so nobody sees the bottle and put it at the other end of the table. Just so you know, everyone is totally hammered. When the first glass of the homemade stuff is poured there is a generally consensus that we got a skunky bottle, NOPE … its just homemade crap. So if a bunch of drunken fools think a bottle of wine is skunky after drinking 10 previous its a great example of how bad homemade wine is.
I’m cool with the twist off cap on wine, sure it takes away some of the Pomp and Circumstance of opening a great bottle of wine, but you don’t have to worry about a tainted cork fucking up your kick ass dinner.
Back to the point. Please fuck off with the “premium box” of wine and tetra packs of wine. Wine should only come in a box if that box includes 11 other bottles.
4 Comments Received
March 1st, 2007 @10:54 am
I presume the ad you saw was one of the new FishEye television ads for their boxed wines. I’m puzzled by the “homemade” reference, as FishEye is produced by The Wine Group, the world’s third largest wine company (also produces Glen Ellen, Corbett Canyon, Foxhorn, Casarsa, Concannon, and others).
Anyway, FishEye is one of the many premium boxed wines which is available in both bottle and box. A bottle of FishEye is about $8 from BevMo. The 3L box (equal to 4 bottles) sells for $17 to $20 which is a nice savings. The bag-in-box is cheaper to produce, cheaper to ship, and cheaper to recycle than a bottle, on top of the savings of buying in a larger volume.
The FishEye Pinot Grigio just won a gold medal in it’s class (which included Pinot Grigio/Gris of all prices, ranging from $5 to $25). The box contains the same wine as the bottle. Seven other boxed wines were represented among the medalist wines as well.
Boxes aren’t for every situation. Economy for a large event; long open shelf life for the glass-a-day drinker; and outdoor recreation where glass is a hazard or just inconvenient. These are the situations where boxed wine makes sense.
Quite oddly, Americans are much more snobbish about alternative packaging than the French, who seem to have a more relaxed attitude about the container, preferring to just enjoy what’s in it. Although, to be fair, the true wine-snob is usually more open minded than the faux-snob; even Robert Parker is delighted by the Dtour Macon-Villages Chardonnay (the “tube” is just a cylindrical box after all).
Fly by Night Sailor
March 5th, 2007 @2:26 pm
I concur that your homemade wine should be consumed in your home and not in mine. Don’t bring it over to a dinner party and run for the opener so you make sure it hits the table. Non-artists should not paint portraits for their home and non-winemakers should not subject others to their swill. Life’s little rules.
I also have to side with JR on the six bottle mega-bag that lasts for eight weeks. Why would the glass a day drinker need a box of wine in the fridge? Assuming they maintained a steady pace they would have a comfortable 25 day supply. Given his regularity, he would also have a storage issue on day 24 as he would need a second box on hand for the next evening, not the mention the fact that 20% of his fridge space is perpetually gone.
The only thing I see the boite-du-vin being used for is a day boil … it would be perfect for the beach, large outdoor potlucks and the like. It would also give casual restaurants by-the-glass convenience assuming the wine quality is up to par and that there have a back room to pour it in to avoid patrons seeing ‘the box’.
Whether it is fair or not, my perception is that this is economy over quality. While the wine is perhaps decent, I am going to go out on a limb and assume that Robert Parker does not have a ‘premium cask’ in his fridge. If I see Fish Eye I’ll grab a bottle and try it to avoid being naive … I’ll likely opt for a bottle.
G.
December 3rd, 2007 @2:26 pm
The bottom line here is that there is value in wine in a box, but only if you are willing to give up quality for quantity. Boxed wine has long been critized at “swill” becuase the brand owners have put their worst wine in this package and then put strange, non recognizable branding so they cannot be connected with the poor product.
This category will forever be bound by the poor choices of the early entrants into this area. The target here is parties and people who cannot and will not spend money on more costly, better quality wines. The early entrants understood the needs of this very narrow segment and met those needs nicely with a poor quality package. Now others are trying to make this out into something that it isn’t, ie a growth trend for boxed wine. Wine consumption is down globally and if we follow the trends of the last five years, will continue down this path.
Cheap wine in a box isn’t going to spur on growth in the wine business, it is only going to serve as another flash in the pan for a younger generation that buys on impulse and isn’t savvy enough to purchase quality wine.
I have to agree with G. I will opt for a bottle over a box every day of the week and twice on Sunday!
March 2nd, 2008 @7:55 am
The main point of my rant is i’m a wine snob wannbe and I don’t want to drink wine from a box. This got me to the point that homemade wine is the lowest of the low and is crap. I wasn’t trying to compare the quality of homemade wine to professionally made wine in a box.
Its a rant that has a mind of its own.
All the best,
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