If you really like a certain wine, rather than buying it in single cork-stoppered bottles why not get in larger two, three or four bottle-sized amounts available in boxes and pouches?
You’ll find many supermarkets sell the same wine in bottles and in four bottle-sized 3-litre wineboxes, but check out the equivalent price per bottle and you’ll find the winebox wine works out cheaper. Wineboxes have other advantages. Dispensed through a plastic tap dispenser, wine boxes do away with the annoyance of broken corks and tainted ‘corked’ wine – improperly sterilised corks spoil at least one in ten traditionally bottled wines.
Partially consumed winebox wine remains fresh and unoxidised for up to six weeks. As the plastic bag concealed within the cardboard box empties, the pressure of the remaining wine stops air entering the tap. For single glass consumers of wine this is a huge bonus. If you’ve tried to keep a partially drunk conventional bottle of wine you’ll know it will become tasteless and oxidised within a couple of days.
But if you’re not convinced that you’ll get through 3-litres of the same wine in six weeks then there are alternatives – newer, smaller, three bottle-sized 2.25 litre wineboxes are now rapidly gaining popularity with both supermarkets and their customers as well as even smaller two bottle-sized 1.5 litre pouch containers.
Looking like the innards from the more traditional 3-litre cardboard winebox, the 1.5 litre wine-filled plastic pouches are being marketing as environmentally-friendly (when thrown away they use 90% less landfill compared to a glass bottle equivalent) and can now be found in both Marks and Spencer and Asda wine aisles.
But despite their ease of use and informality, as well as longevity, wineboxes and pouches have one major disadvantage compared to wine in traditionally-sized 75cl bottles – their price. You just can’t get away from the fact that you’ve got to hand over a large wad of cash in one go.
PG Winebox Reviews
Asda Australian Shiraz 1.5-litre wine pouch
£9.48 (equivalent to £4.74/75cl) Asda
Tastes like Maltesers with a backbone of blackberry – will stand up to most foods.
Sainsbury’s House French Dry White 2.25-litre winebox
£11.75 (equivalent to £3.92/75cl) Sainsbury’s
Simple flavours of melon and pineapple.
Vineyards Spanish Cabernet Sauvignon 2.25-litre winebox
£11.79 (equivalent to £3.93/75cl) Tesco
Pizza plonk.
The Co-op Fab Cab Californian Ruby Cabernet Shiraz 2.25-litre winebox
£13.99 (equivalent to £4.66/75cl) Co-op
Cherry juice and bubblegum. Very American.
Parra Alta Argentinean Malbec Shiraz 2.25-litre winecask
£17.99 (equivalent price £6/75cl) Tesco
Full-bodied red with blackberry and vanilla flavours.
JP Chenet Vin Blanc, 3-litre winebox
£17.99 (equivalent price £4.50/75cl) Tesco
This is what we used to call a wine lake blend but is now more delightfully called a ‘Vin de la Communauté Européenne’. There’s no clue to what grape varieties go into this or from which countries they originate but all that become irrelevant when you concentrate on the taste – extremely pleasant and fruity with light apple, melon and pear flavours. A go with anything white. Good stuff.
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© Paula Goddard 2014 www.paulagoddard.com
