What Is The Best Box Wine In South Africa
This year Robertson Winery Sauvignon Blanc was awarded the best White Box Wine in South Africa and Drostdy-hof Merlot 2010 walked away with the title for best Red. This year saw the second year of the awards and entries to this years competition increased from 14 bag in a box wines to a staggering 39.
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
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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Is Black Box Wine Bad For You
But boxed wine may have an environmental dark side: Some of the plastic bags inside the boxes contain Bisphenol-A , a synthetic chemical that has been in use for four decades to strengthen plastic food containers and other items but recently has been linked to a range of human health problems.
Storage Tips Black Box Wines dont need to be refrigerated after opening because they stay fresh at room temperature. However, we do recommend refrigerating our white wines so theyre always chilled and ready to serve. Ideally, reds should be kept someplace cool, away from direct sunlight.
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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Boxed Wines Ranked From Best To Worst
If you’re trying to drink wine on a budget and you’re not drinking boxed wine, you’re missing out.Boxed wine has long been one of the most maligned wines in the industry, even though it’s always been the more affordable and environmentally friendly option. In the past few years, boxed wine has grown into a compelling genre of its own, reaching beyond the familiar Franzia and Carlo Rossi to include European brands and even local Oregon and Washington wineries.On a recent fateful evening with the upcoming winter holidays in mind, we sat down and blind-sampled 45 boxed wines — 19 white and 26 red wines — to bring you this ranked guide to the best and the worst wines available at major grocery stores across the city.For both reds and whites, we tried to buy the same variety. Most of the whites are pinot grigio, with a handful of sauvignon blanc and chardonnay mixed in, depending on what producers offered. Reds are mostly cabernet sauvignon with an occasional merlot, pinot noir or Italian/Spanish variety.Wines were purchased from Fred Meyer, QFC, New Seasons, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. We found the most wines at Fred Meyer and QFC, which both had a sale running when we bought the wines. The price/bottle calculations are based on what we paid, but may vary when you make your purchase.Here’s our guide to every boxed wine we could find at major grocery stores, ranked from best to worst.
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.
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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.
What’s The Difference Between Boxed Wine And Bottled Wine
In fact, the only difference is the packaging. The same winepoor quality to high qualitycan be placed either in a bottle or a box. When a bottle is opened it must be consumed within days, but once a box is opened, it can be preserved for weeks. Meaning that you can enjoy boxed wine a little bit at a time.
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Best For Red Wine Fanatics: Black Box Red Blend
Taste of Home
Crowd-pleasing picks aside, the red wine-lovers in our tasting group preferred this blend from Black Box. Pouring ourselves a small sample, we picked up on an assertive aroma. A wine with a bold bouquet certainly had to have an impactful taste, right?
Absolutely right! Taking a sip of Black Boxs red blend, we found it to be pleasantly powerful. Considering the spectrum of sweet to dry, this wine was right in the middle, making it a joy to sip on its own. While sampling, we all commented on how this wine was a bit more complex than the others we tried. It took us some time to parse out the individual flavors, but in the end, we picked up notes of plum, berries, vanilla and a little spice . The finish of this wine was long allowing us to savor those subtle flavors.
- Price of a 3L box : $15.99
- Cost per glass: $0.80
Which Is The Best Black Box Wine
4.4/5“Best Black Box Wine”
- Black Box Cabernet. A full-bodied wine, displaying enticing aromas of black currant, toasty oak, and a hint of vanilla.
- Black Box Merlot.
- Black Box Red Blend.
- Black Box Pinot Noir.
- Black Box Rose.
- Indaba Sauvignon Blanc 3 Liters of Delicious. By: Jon Thorsen Last Updated: July 24, 2019.
- La Vieille Ferme Rosé Fresh, Easy and Cheap.
- Stella Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Hits The Spot!
- Bridge Lane Rosé and Sauvignon Blanc High-Quality Wine In A Can.
- Porta 6 Red Goes Down Easy.
- Boxx Cellars Sangiovese Truly Tasty.
Beside above, what company makes black box wine? Constellation though saw an opportunity where others saw none and in 2003 launched the first premium box wine, Black Box. The company, which also owns the Robert Mondavi winery, sort of stumbled into box wines when some of its executives were impressed by the quality of Black Box during a sampling.
Simply so, which black box wine is the sweetest?
Best Black Box White Wine: Sauvignon BlancFortunately, the juice wasn’t as sweet as the scents might have suggested, and the acidity shined through instead. In addition to the citrus flavors, this wine offered a little grassiness, as you might expect from a Sauvignon Blanc, though it wasn’t vegetal or off-putting.
How much wine is in a black box?
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Black Box Cabernet Sauvignon
Price- $17.98
Cabernet Sauvignon is the worlds most famous red wine. It is a full-bodied wine with aromas of toasty oak, black currant and a hint of vanilla. It has varied flavors with dark fruit flavors and savory tastes from bell pepper and black pepper.
Food Pairing-
Cabernet is one of the most complex wines out there and can be paired with basically all types of foods. However, it did exceptionally well with food high in fat and braised short ribs and stroganoff and mushrooms.
Boxed Wine Can Be Surprisingly Delicious Find Out Which Brand Deserves To Be Called The Best Boxed Red Wine
Taste of Home
When Im in full-on entertaining mode, things can become a little stressful right before a party. Between all of the cooking and decoratingand dont get me started on cleaningI like to give myself a bit of a break when it comes to beverages. For big families and big events, a bottle or two of red wine just wont cut it. Id be uncorking all night! Thats when I like to rely on boxed wine. Its easy to serve and a big box is pretty gosh-darn cheap.
Recently, though, it seems like the boxed wine section of my grocery store has expanded. With so many options to choose from, I rounded up a few of my favorite tasting pals to compare five different red blends in a blind taste test. Here are the wines we tried:
While we did sip these in a blind test, we did peek at the end at pricing. Here are our favorites:
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Black Box Launches Wine In 500ml Tetra Pak Cartons
| Jan 30, 2014
Black Box, America’s first premium and best-selling 3-liter box wine known for its quality and conveniently sleek packaging, is introducing three of its award winning varietalsCabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnayin 500-milliliter Tetra Pak cartons, or the equivalent of three servings per pack. The wines will be available nationwide in October 2011 for a suggested retail price of $4.99.
While Black Box 3L wines are part of the fastest growing table wine category, the growth of Tetra Pak size packaging also continues to increase among glass table and boxed wines with double-digit sales and volume growth since 2009.
“Black Box is proud to continue a tradition of redefining how wine can be packaged, consumed, shared and enjoyed,” says Black Box Wines director of marketing, Kim Moore. “We’re eager for new Black Box consumers to trial our brand in this smaller format and also extend our core wines into Tetra Pak to meet the needs of our 3L consumers seeking the same quality and value coupled with convenience and practicality.”
Black Box Wines in the new Tetra Pak cartons make it easy to enjoy quality wine while living an active, modern lifestyle. The new carton is also an improvement on the already environmentally friendly 3L cartons since Tetra Pak packaging weighs less, takes up less space when empty and therefore requires far less fuel when transporting from the vine to your home.
The Best Boxed Wines We’ve Tasted
We skipped a natural white and a couple of moscatos but fell in love with a Beaujolais
Most wine drinkers are accustomed to buying and serving wine from a bottle, but its not the eternal packaging for the eternal beverage. After all, the Greek god of winemaking, Dionysus, wasnt pouring wine for his maenads from glass bottles but from amphorae, earthenware jugs that held about the equivalent of four bottles of wine. It wasnt until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that people began to ship and store wine in bottles as a common practice.
Boxed wine is newer on the scene, and has struggled to make inroads among serious civilian wine drinkers because of its reputation as a vessel for the cheapest sludge youd pour at a college party. But as our team of passionate wine drinkers and evaluators discovered, its poor standing isnt entirely fair. You can get bad wine in a box, but you can certainly get bad wine in a bottle, as well. More importantly, the reverse is also true: You can get some great wines in a box.
Best Overall Boxed Wine: Wineberry Chateau du Chatelard Beaujolais 2018
Price: From $39.99 for 3 litersSize: 3-liter bag-in-boxWhere to buy: Astor Wines & Spirits or Drizly, or check availability
The People Pleaser: Black Box Pinot Noir 2019
Price: From $19.09 for 3 litersWhere to buy: Drizly, FreshDirect, or Total Wine, or check availability
Best White Wine: Black Box Sauvignon Blanc
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Black Versus Bota Box Wine Battle
Black Box Wine, Bota Box Wine, Box Wine, Cabernet Sauvignon, Eco-friendly packaging
Youre a wine drinker and youve passed them in your local grocery. You look at them with curiosity, puzzlement, and perhaps even disdain.
Its time to lighten up to box wines and enjoy the often tasty and economical solution to wanting just one glass some nights. Boxed wines are better than ever before and shaking off the past negative images of swill in cardboard.
There is no point trying to convince anyone the grocery boxed wines are super, high-premium wines because for the most part they are not. Some brands will advertise that way but its misleading. Two of the most prominent in the Midwest are Black Box and Bota Box.
A definition or two is in order before going any further. The boxed wines come with an air-tight plastic pouch inside with a pour spout attached. Generally, once opened, the wines will last a month. The container holds four bottles of wine. Different companies do offer different sizes and various price points.
Black Box has been a long-time player. Black Box got its start in 2002 with the promise of super-premium wine in an environmentally friendly box. Black Box is a leader in the business and sells for around $23. You can find it for as low as $19.99 in many places.
Keep in mind most of these wines are blends. In California, for instance, a wine only has to include 75 percent Cabernet to be called Cabernet. And lets face it, this isnt Napa Cab.
Best White: Frontera Sauvignon Blanc
courtesy of Marketview Liquors
Region: Chile | ABV: 12.5% | Tasting Notes: Lemon peel, Tropical fruit, Green apple
Bright, young, and fresh, this summery Sav Blanc has its zippy roots in Chiles Central Valley, where the grapes have a mineral exuberance. Its a crisp sip with citrusy, snappy appeal, hints of tropical fruit, and a clean finish that makes it a match for all sorts of light picnic foods. This ones a refreshing bargain.
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Does Boxed Wine Last Longer Than Bottled Wine
Boxed wine actually does have an expiration date, unlike bottled wine. This is because boxed wine is more porous than bottled wine. If you consume the boxed wine within 6-8 weeks of opening it, however, it will still be fresh an upside to consuming bottled wine, which will only stay fresh for one week after opening.
And A Few Disadvantages
Boxed wine has a sell-by date. While bag-in-box wine has an impressive shelf life after it has been opened, its longevity is limited before opening. The big issue with bag-in-box wine is that as a container, it doesnt keep oxygen out as well as glass bottles, says Andrew Waterhouse, PhD, a wine chemist and the director of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science at the University of California, Davis. The plastic is designed to absorb oxygen, but that only lasts for a few months. Basically, after six months, the wine will start oxidizing pretty quickly. Youll know its oxidized if the wine has a distinctly nutty flavor, rather like sherry, he says.
Dont plan to age your boxed wine, Waterhouse advises, and check the sell-by date when you purchase.
Forget about boxed Champagne. Most champagnes and other traditional sparkling wines, like cava and prosecco, require strong packaging that can handle the pressure of carbonization. You cant do sparkling wine in a box, Waterhouse says. No way could those bags hold the pressure. Very lightly fizzy wines, like some moscatos, may work in a bag, he says. Otherwise, this is a category thats best in a bottle or a can.
This doesnt mean you cant get boxed wine in a richer style. Case in point, the malbec we evaluated and enjoyed. Its just less common, so youll have to look harder for the good stuff.
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