I don’t like box wine. I am however a fan of box wine.
It’s not a snob thing; I just usually know something not much more expensive that will provide me with a lot more pleasure. Why not drink a low cost Sauvignon de St. Bris instead of Three Thieves? I’ll tell you why not, because 90%* of the readership of this blog has never had a Sauvignon de St. Bris, wouldn’t know where to find it, and wouldn’t recognize it if it somehow bit them on the nose (that includes my mother… An avid reader.)
10% of the readers of this posting can rest easy in their knowledge, find great wines at great prices in odd places, and cash in on years of hard study and studious tasting… “We band of brothers, we lucky few.”
30% of my readers will happily spend their way out of their indecision;
with $40 a blind monkey can find a 
great wine (at retail) in any city in the
world. Even if you weren’t to know the
punt from the foil, there will be plenty of shopkeepers happy to help you part
with your money… “Many Americans equate
cost with quality, and believe that more expensive wines are better, simply
based on their price. Consequently, many believe that enjoying wine by its very
nature is an expensive endeavor, since the best wines are the most expensive.”**
Everyone else (20%) will just say “Screw it, where’s the beer case?”
Enter modern box wine. I see
box wine as an easy, safe bridge to the world of wine. Buy it at Target and
Walmart. It’s cheap. With a Mylar bag insert, it will last in the fridge. Many of the wines are better than “Two buck
Chuck”, and serve as an easy and confidence inspiring alternative to beer. I am all for the bigger wine companies
flexing their economies of scale, and reviving the flagging >$6 wines
category with a new, sensible range of offerings. We know that Kendall Jackson can produce reliable, value
packed products in obscene quantities, day in, day out. The challenge now is to bring that same
quality brand promise to a new consumer, one who considers the $14 “premium
category” premium.
One of the more persistent trends in recent years in terms of wine sales was the growing popularity of box wines, in particular more upscale brands. Traditionally, box wines were seen as a cheaper way to buy more volume for less price, popular with consumers unconcerned with presentation or quality. But in 2005, upscale labels such as Black Box wine and Block Wine from Kendall-Jackson made strong sales gains. Box wines typically have airtight plastic bags inside lavishly decorated cardboard boxes. The packaging limits the amount of air that gets inside, prolonging the life of the wine. Box wines are also convenient to carry and store in refrigerators. Wine consumers do not have to deal with corkscrews or open bottles, and the packaging also costs less for producers, keeping prices lower. As wine producers look for new ways to soften the elite image of wine and make it more palatable to the mass consumer, box wines are poised to increasingly become an option for wine labels, both economy and premium.**
**Euromonitor International : Country Sector Briefing, “Wine – US”, April 2006
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