From Elin McCoy at Bloomberg.com:
Just in time, the latest box wines are going upscale and hip, touting their higher quality and planet-friendly packaging. Because the compact, 3-liter box costs less to produce and weighs less than the four 750-milliliter bottles it replaces, it costs less to transport and has about half the carbon footprint of the same amount of bottled wine.
In fact, according to Nielsen, the premium 3-liter box wine category is the fastest-growing segment of the wine industry. In the fourth quarter of 2008, table-wine sales growth slowed to 2.8 percent, yet premium boxes zoomed 32 percent. Key buyers? Those with incomes of $70,000 and up, especially men.
Box wine itself isn’t new. The packaging system, developed about 50 years ago by Illinois-based Scholle Corp. for sulfuric acid, was first used for wine in Australia, where the now wildly popular box is known as a “wine cask.” A flexible plastic bag with a built-in spigot holds the wine inside a sturdy box. Vacuum-sealed, the bag collapses as wine is drawn off, which prevents oxygen from spoiling the remainder, as happens to a half-full bottle within a day or two. Most brands claim that opened box wines will stay fresh for a month to six weeks, though I’ve found that three weeks is usually the max.
I’m not a wine snob, but I have sent back a bottle at a restaurant, so I do have some standards. Thanks to the recommendation from the proprietor of Louisville Juice, I tried Black Box Merlot and found it to be just fine. I’m trying their Cab next — $18 for three liters at that big warehouse store I favor.