Qunita Da Espiga Vino Tinto
This red wine from Espiga is great for heartier cold-weather fare and barbecue. While a bit heavy in terms of mouthfeel, theres obvious red and black fruit and a bit of leather and spice. Its good enough to be the house red at many restaurants, at least during happy hour. And if winter drags, use it as a great base for mulled wine.
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Are There Any Drawbacks
Even though BIB wine has a longer shelf life than a bottle, it will go off eventually, so keep in mind that a three-litre box is the equivalent of 20 glasses of wine. People who get bored with the same food and drink night after night should think carefully about committing to the same wine for an entire month.
Its also perhaps a little too easy to keep going back to the box for a refill. Opening a second bottle of wine is a decision mindlessly tapping the box for another splash could easily become habit-forming.
Best Red: Pour Haus Cabernet Sauvignon
Courtesy of Minibar
Region: California | ABV: 13% | Tasting Notes: Red fruits, Spice, Rhubarb
Cabernet Sauvignon, the head honcho of red wine grapes, doesnt always translate well into a box, but the clever folks behind Pour Haus have figured it out. This California blend is bold and mildly acidic with oaky flavor notes of strawberry, raspberry, spice and rhubarb. Luscious and full-bodied, you’ll want to pair this with fatty meats and rich cheeses. This wine delivers exceptional quality and value.
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La Vieille Ferme White Wine France 3l
My favorite of the three La Vieille Ferme box wines I sampled, the white wine has a pale gold color, a tropical fruit nose, notes of underripe banana and hints of pineapple, and a chalky kind of mineral character, with good acid on a mouth-coating finish. Also look out for the boxed rosé, which has a pale salmon pink color, and is quite simple and clean with strawberry, white peach, and prickly pear notes, and subtle Mediterranean herb notes. And the red boxed wine is worth trying, too. Deep ruby-purple color, this wine is quite soft, with mouth-coating tannins, subtle red berry and earthy aromas, and a spicy finish.
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Where In California Is The Wine Country
The Californian wine country is in the North San Francisco Bay area, with over 800 wineries located all along this scenic route. The Bay area encompasses some of the world’s most famous wine regions, including Napa Valley and Sonoma.
The success of these famous regions within the Bay area is largely to do with the sound soil composition and ideal climatic conditions. Each region is fortunate to have a wide range of temperatures and soil types, allowing the brilliant variety of grapes to thrive here.
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Best Budget: Franzia Sunset Blush Pink Wine
Courtesy of Walmart.com
Region: California | ABV: 9% | Tasting Notes: Strawberry, Ripe peach, Grapefruit
No proper boxed wine list is complete without an appearance by Franzia. Founded in 1906, Franzia is one of the worlds most popular wines. Its been known to invade your grandmothers fridge and college dinner parties. The label likes to have a little fun and shouldnt all wine do that? Their Sunset Blush Rosé is as fun as it gets from the perfect pink color to the medium-sweet notes of strawberry, peach and grapefruit. Easily accessible and highly recognizable, this is also one of the most economical selections on our list.
Best Red Blend: Black Box Red Blend
Courtesy of Drizly.com
Region: California | ABV: 14% | Tasting Notes: Mineral, Blueberries, Red berries
Black Box strikes again with this impressive and delicious blend of their pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon varieties sourced from California, Argentina, and Chile. Mildly sweet with notes of cherry, raspberry, earth and blueberry. Looking for a red that can stand on its own? This velvety smooth blend fits the bill.
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Best Tasting Box Wines
Alternative wine packaging is revolutionizing the wine industry, and resultantly, the list of best tasting boxed wines is growing. Wines in boxes, pouches, and cans are big business and provide a great way to find affordable wines of decent quality. While you still wont find the top rated, best quality wines in boxes and cans, there are still plenty of delicious, drinkable boxed wines that are perfect for parties or as everyday drinkers.
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Best Tetrapak: Bota Box Pinot Grigio
Courtesy of Walmart.com
Region: California | ABV: 13% | Tasting Notes: Lemon-lime, Pineapple, Floral
The hits keep coming from Bota Box with this appetizing, ultra-convenient, eco-friendly packaging, making it easier to take their greatness anywhere. This vibrant medium-bodied white is light and lacy with crisp peach, citrus aromas and flavors of pineapple and white flowers.
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Firstleaf Customer Service And Reviews
If theres one thing Firstleaf customers love more than the wine, its the customer service team. Out of more than 300 reviews on Trustpilot, Firstleaf has an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars. One customer, who had to cancel an order due to travel, wrote, I dealt with three representatives, and they were some of the best customer service professionals I have spoken to.
Others have described the team as wonderful,fantastic, and great. Several folks said pausing or cancelling their subscription was seamless. Between the virtual concierge to help with orders and the fast response time, its obvious that Firstleaf cares about its customers. Another perk Firstleaf customers love is the virtual wine school, an online database with articles about the wine industry, specific blends, and other interesting tidbits.
Of course, we cant forget about the wine. One reviewer wrote, Excellent wine club. The wines are good quality and all of them selected based on my personal preferences .
Another customer added, As many others here, I have enjoyed almost every wine I was sent so far and do not remember major disappointments. The reviewer also mentioned how the club offers a wide variety of styles, regions, and tastes that are rarely found in mainstream stores. Their only suggestion: Adding some Southeastern Europe varieties would be a wonderful breath of fresh air.
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Vin Vault Chardonnay California 3l
This wine is rich and creamy, with tart apple and pear flavors, and subtle caramel and toasty toffee notes on the finish. Also look out for the Cabernet Sauvignon here, which is a deep ruby-purple color, with really sumptuous black fruit aromas, along with graphite and sweet oak spice. Its round, plush and soft with chocolate-covered black cherry notes, vanilla bean, chewy tannins and a subtle smoky herbaceous note on a blueberry compote-tinged finish.
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Bota Box Wines Ranked Worst To Best
Back in the day, boxed wine was known for having a notoriously bad taste. It was something to be avoided in most cases, and so glass bottles were much preferred by the discerning wine enthusiast. However, these days, the tide has turned. More and more people are realizing that there are actually some quality boxed wines out there. And not only are they often cheaper than many alternatives, but they also stay good for longer. That’s perfect for people who live alone or who don’t tend to drink too regularly. And of course, turning up to a party with a box of wine is probably going to win you automatic popularity points.
While there are several great boxed wine brands out there, one of our favorites is Bota Box. This brand offers a slew of different types of wine and tends to be pretty widely available. Are they making the most interesting, revolutionary wine out there? Well, no, not exactly. But are they making quality standard wines that just about everyone will enjoy sipping? Absolutely yes.
That’s why we’ve decided to take a closer look at the brand and rank their wines from worst to best. We started out with our least favorites and worked our way to the ones we think are best of the Bota Box brand. But while you can use our ranking as a guide, know that you should definitely try them out for yourself.
We Tried 7 Boxed Red Wines And This Is The Best
Boxed wine has been around since the 1980s, but has spiked in popularity over the past few years as people look for easier ways to store and drink wine, as well as be more eco-conscious. In fact, more people are turning to boxed wine after realizing the quality of wine is the same as whats in the bottles, and its way easier to let family and friends pour themselves a glass right out of the fridge without the need for a corkscrew.
In the name of science, we tried seven different boxed wines to see which one is the best. To start, I narrowed down this search for boxed wine to only include red wine, which is consistently the most Googled wine across the United States, according to a Google Trends search. Then, once I was at the liquor store, I tried to pick options that I knew would be readily available in most grocery stores. After gathering a few friendsbecause who wants to drink aloneI broke open the boxes and we started tasting.
This is the official ranking of seven of the most popular boxed red wines. If you prefer a canned wine, weve got a list of the 17 best canned-wine brands that you should try. Cheers!
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Best Overall: Bota Box Old Vine Zinfandel
Courtesy of Wine.com
Region: California | ABV: 13% | Tasting Notes: Black fruits, Pepper, Blueberries
The boxed wine to reign over all other boxed wines with its enchanting flavor is the Old Vine Zinfandel from Bota Box.
Proudly produced from California grapes, this wine is very agreeable on the palate and proves boxed wine is a force to be reckoned with. Bold with balanced acidity and notes of black cherry, black plum, pepper spice and blueberry. This dark and jammy wine pairs well with barbecue and grilled meats.
Boxed Wine Isnt Actually Horrible
Aside from the obvious advantage of being cheaper, buying boxed wine is actually smart for a host of other reasons so much so that some vintners are starting to sell even their fancy cuvees in cardboard.
Why, you ask? Well, first of all its nigh impossible for wine to go bad in a box, either before or after opening.
Thats because of the vacuum-sealed bag inside the box which you may or may not remember from college. It keeps the wine almost entirely out of contact with oxygen, which means youll never open a box to find your wines already turned.
And that cute little spigot? It works to maintain the wines vacuum seal, even after youve had a glass , which means you can keep an open box of wine on the counter for weeks instead of just a couple of days, like with a bottle.
And although its true that cork allows wines that need it to age with grace, most easy-drinking table quaffs dont benefit much from sitting in a bottle, or will be drunk too young for it to matter.
Boxed wine also carries a much smaller carbon footprint and you can take it into glass-free zones, like campsites.
But enough about why its awesome: Which one tastes best?
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Best Ros: Le Vieille Ferme
Courtesy of Amazon
Region: France | ABV: 12.5% | Tasting Notes: Floral, Citrus, Peach
Brown calls this wine produced by the Southern Rhônes famed Perrin family one of the best wine values of the wine world.
A blend of syrah, grenache, and cinsault, its a consistent gem thats 100 percent crushable, she says, with a red-fruit palate and touches of citrus, peach flesh, and white flowers.
Its a perfect match poolside with friends, for those regular Tuesday nights with leftover Chinese food, or while simply Netflix and chilling, folding laundry. Nadine Brown, wine consultant and former wine director of Charlie Palmer Steak in DC
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How To Shop For Boxed Wine
Even if youre unable to find one of our recommended picks in your area, you can still find a perfectly delicious boxed wine in your local wine shop: Smaller winemakers that sell only within a particular region can offer spectacular wines that arent available nationally.
Find the right shop. Find a retailer that focuses on wine, Leon says. It helps with the quality of whats being offered. Small shops that focus on beverages, specificallyrather than, say, a grocery store or a big-box storeare going to pay more careful attention to what they stock, he says, so youre more likely to be able to trust whatever you pull from the shelf.
Pay attention to what the box says, too. Leon says that the more specific the information, the better the wine youre probably getting. If the label states where the wine is coming from, and exactly what grapes are in the wine, you are already way ahead of the game, he says. For example, on the Wineberry Beaujolais, you can find the appellation, or the official region where the grapes are grown the winery that made the wine and where the wine was packaged. These are all indicators that a wine is at least decent, if not better, quality.
Like all CR evaluations of products and services, our Outside the Labs reviews are independent and free from advertising. If youd like to learn more about the criteria for our lab testing, please go to the Research & Testing page on our website.
Angela Lashbrook
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Bota Box Pinot Grigio Honest Review: I Tried Every Boxed Wine So You Dont Have To
Posted on Last updated:
My honest review of Bota Box Pinot Grigio.
This series of posts is designed to help you choose the right boxed wine for you. No one would ever pay me for my opinions, so you can rest assured my reviews are 100% unbiased ?
Overall value of the wine is primarily graded by taste and the number of ice cubes needed to make it drinkable. Wines are rated on a grading scale of F to A+, because wine rating systems are arbitrary and I like letters more than numbers.
So join me as I suffer through three liters of every Black Box, Bota, Barefoot, and whatever else I find on the shelves of Harris Teeter.
A Million And One Advantages Of Boxed Wines
It lasts a long time once opened. Industry professionals have a more accurate term for boxed wine: bag-in-box. Most boxed wines actually come in a plastic pouch with a polyester outer layer. The bag is filled under vacuum, so theres no air in it. This bag shrinks as you pour the wine from the spout, which keeps the wine fresher much longer than wine in a bottle, which of course stays the same size no matter how much wine youve drunk from it.
Most 3-liter boxes will stay good for up to six weeks after theyve been opened, says Chris Leon, owner of the Brooklyn, N.Y., wine shop Leon & Son. A box is the ideal option for someone who wants merely a splash of wine here and there, he says. I even know some wine professionals who will keep a box in the fridge for when they just want a quick glass.
This applies only to bag-in-box wines, from which you pour via a spout, though. Bandit, which makes the pinot grigio that we tried, sells its wine in Tetra Paks, a multilayered, shelf-stable packaging that brings to mind plant milks . Like with a bottle of wine, air replaces wine as the juice is pouredso while Tetra Pak wines are shelf-stable prior to opening, they need to be consumed within a few days of cracking the seal.
This is partly because glass is more expensive, he says. Its also more difficult to ship: Glass is much heavier than plastic and cardboard, and takes up more space than a box, which can be stacked without any space in between parcels.
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How I Chose The Boxed Wines For Tasting
Because casually swinging by multiple grocery stores isnt the smartest idea right now, I chose options that were available at my local Kroger. Black Box and Dark Horse both make their rosé in three-liter bag-in-box formats, but they werent available at my grocery store. Instead, I tasted those same wines in their single-serve formats. I also threw in a couple of options from smaller importers that can be purchased online.
Note: Most boxes I bought denote that they last 30 days after opening, however in my experience, if you keep your box in the refrigerator, you can get closer to five or six weeks out of it.
As promised, here are my favorites in a few different categories.
