What Is In a Box?

     
Have you ever been at a large gathering and all they have to serve is box wine? Do you think to yourself, "Will I like the taste of wine from a box?" I'll admit to having that thought myself so I decided to have a "non-scientific" blind tasting of box wines. I found the results to be quite interesting.

The Experiment

Question:  With the increase in the number of boxed wines available, has the quality improved?

To begin my experiment I purchased three boxes of Chardonnay: Wine Cube (Target), Black Box, and Bota Box. In addition I bought a bottle of Wheelhouse 2011 Chardonnay. Next, I needed some test subjects. It was easy to find volunteers at a recent neighborhood Bunco evening. Each participant was given a tasting sheet to record their thoughts and opinions as they sampled each wine. My tasters knew they were sampling  boxed wines and were asked to comment on the nose, flavor intensity, and asked to answer the question, "Would you purchase this wine for yourself or a party?" They also rated the wine on a five point scale.

The Results

• The favorite wine according to my tasters was Wine Cube Chardonnay from Target. The 3 Liter box(Equivalent to 4 - 750 ml bottles) retails for under $20. Everyone agreed this wine was approachable with a nice nose. Would they purchase this wine for a party? All agreed it would be a nice party wine - even those tasters that aren't typically Chardonnay drinkers.

• Second place goes to Black Box Chardonnay. This 3 Liter box is readily available for just under $25 a box. All agreed this wine would be a good party wine, but felt it fell a little flat compared to the Wine Cube.

• Third place - not a box at all -Wheelhouse Chardonnay purchased at World Market for $14.99 a bottle (that would be $59.96 for 3 L). Oak flavors were definitely present in this wine. The ladies were split on their opinions of this wine. This may have had been affected by the fact that a couple of the ladies are not normally Chardonnay drinkers and are not fans of the oak that was present.

• And finally Bota Box was the least favorite wine of the evening.although a handful of tasters agreed they enjoyed it enough to purchase this wine for themselves and a party. A 3 Liter box of this wine is available for under $25.

As I said in the beginning, this was just a sampling of tasters for a unscientific taste test. The lesson I learned: as more choices  appear in the stores, the quality is also growing. The packaging is so efficient for large groups and the shelf life of an opened box, up to four weeks, can't be beat. There is a time and place for these wines.......and in the future, who knows.

Cheers,
Beth