Did you know there are over 30 wine holidays? Are wine bottles really just for “snob factor”? In this episode, Anna and Lia discuss the magical drink that’s gotten us through 2020 and do some, um, sampling. Lia tells us the story of three rival Rosé Days(!), how Malbec became an Argentinian wine, and the heroes behind holidays like “Open That Bottle Night.” In a totally legit scientific study, Anna tests her Franzia-loving Grandpa’s theory that you can get just as good wine in boxes as you can bottles, which are just for “snob factor." She explores which is the best wine container (bottles, cans or boxes) and wonders, “Has my Grandpa been right all along?”
Connect with us at @FoodDayPod on Instagram & Twitter, join our Facebook Group, and check out our webpage.
Watch the Black Box Wines Shattered Red TV commercial
Check out Franzia Wines' Franz with Benefits campaign
Watch Good Morning La La Land's interview with Mr. Bodvar about "summer's water"
Did you know there are over 30 wine holidays? Are wine bottles really just for “snob factor”? In this episode, Anna and Lia discuss the magical drink that’s gotten us through 2020 and do some, um, sampling. Lia tells us the story of three rival Rosé Days(!), how Malbec became an Argentinian wine, and the heroes behind holidays like “Open That Bottle Night.” In a totally legit scientific study, Anna tests her Franzia-loving Grandpa’s theory that you can get just as good wine in boxes as you can bottles, which are just for “snob factor." She explores which is the best wine container (bottles, cans or boxes) and wonders, “Has my Grandpa been right all along?”
Connect with us at @FoodDayPod on Instagram & Twitter, join our Facebook Group, and check out our webpage.
Watch the Black Box Wines Shattered Red TV commercial
Check out Franzia Wines' Franz with Benefits campaign
Watch Good Morning La La Land's interview with Mr. Bodvar about "summer's water"
ANNA 0:00:03
Hi, everyone, from YumDay and Van Valin productions, this is Every Day is a Food Day. I'm your host, Anna Van Valin.
LIA 0:00:26
And I'm your other host, Lia Ballentine. On Every Day is a Food Day, we celebrate food stories from our calendars to our kitchens.
ANNA 0:00:34
On today's episode, we're talking about everyone's favorite liquid, Wine.
LIA 0:00:40
Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Join our Facebook and connect with us on Instagram and Twitter at FoodDaypod to let us know what you're thinking, cooking and eating, and drinking.
ANNA 0:00:54
And for more info and resources for the show, check out our show notes and visit us at yumday.co/podcast.
LIA 0:01:01
On Everyday is a Food Day, we believe that food stories are people's stories, so pop a cork.
ANNA 0:01:07
Or open a can.
LIA 0:01:08
Or tap that box.
ANNA 0:01:09
And let's tell some stories.
ANNA 0:01:27
So, Lia, do you wanna see my wine stash for recording this episode?
LIA 0:01:32
I would love to see it.
ANNA 0:01:33
So, I brought up a little cooler into my studio, and today we have a rosé...
LIA 0:01:43
Oh, pretty.
ANNA 0:01:44
Paper Planes... Isn't that a pretty can?
LIA 0:01:45
That is really pretty.
ANNA 0:01:47
We have a Pinot Grigio from Bev wines. We have a grigio with bubbles from BABE wine...
LIA 0:01:56
Very nice.
ANNA 0:01:59
And we have some frozen Mixed vegetables, just to start with...
LIA 0:02:03
You gotta some frozen peas with you.
ANNA 0:02:08
And then we also have... 'cause I didn't want the boxes to feel left out... I got this big ole'...
LIA 0:02:15
That is a pretty box.
ANNA 0:02:17
It is. Block 67 Trader Joe's, red wine. Anyway, what do you got?
LIA 0:02:22
Yes, I also, here in my closet, I mean, recording studio, I brought some wine as well, I'm currently sipping on a can of wine. This is from House Wine as well. It's cute. and I have another wine but... I'm gonna I’m gonna save this wine for... I'll show it off a little bit later to you... It's also... In a nice package.
ANNA 0:02:48
I'm excited.
LIA 0:02:49
Yeah.
ANNA 0:02:50
All right. Let's get started. So, Lia, you started YumDay because you wanted to celebrate all the food holidays, but... I don't know. Are there any beverage holidays?
LIA 0:03:03
Well, okay, yes, so I chose Yum Day because I was like, I'm gonna celebrate all of these food holidays, and then in the process of doing that, I discovered that there are a ton of booze holidays as well.
ANNA 0:03:14
Booze Holidays.
LIA 0:03:15
I mean I get it, I guess people want a reason to be drinking, but it kinda caught me by surprise because there was a week where it's Buttered Rum Day... Great, I'll learn how to make a buttered rum and I'm gonna celebrate this, but then also later that week was Irish coffee day, and then there was another alcohol day like a few days after that, so I was not ready to really just get into all of the alcohol days, but there are many of them...
ANNA 0:03:43
I think it makes sense. We talk every time about how important food is to society, to culture, to our relationships, so are beverages. We literally fought wars over tea. I mean, like coffee, Coca-Cola, and alcoholic beverages, these are all part of our ceremonies, our traditions, and things like that, so it makes perfect sense to me that we’d also be celebrating all kinds of beverage holidays. And the boozy holidays, I think it's a lot harder for people to just be like, Man, I feel like drinking. And it's a lot easier for people to be like, I mean, it's like mojito day, it's national mojito day. What am I supposed to not have a mojito on National Mojito Day? I have no choice in the matter. But yeah, we started talking about boozey holidays and wine holidays because of the pandemic, and there's all these jokes about how our wine consumption has increased and that's not just a joke, there's actual data to support that. So these stats that I shared with you earlier, “on-premise drinking,” so on-premise drinking is like at bars, restaurants, breweries, things like that, off-premise drinking is at home, drinking, the comfort of your... home. It's on my premise. So in the first half of 2020, according to Neilson off-premise drinking spike 27%.
LIA 0:05:03
What?
ANNA 0:05:04
Yeah. And wine specifically has jumped a lot. Boxed wine. Right? So from February 2019 to February 2020, like year over year, box wine sales increased 5%. But in the two months of the first two months of covid, box wine sales went up 44%.
LIA 0:05:28
That is insane.
ANNA 0:05:29
So I think it's fueling this alternative packaging boom, which we're gonna talk about later. But we started talking about this, and then you started telling me that there's like a million wine holidays...
LIA 0:05:39
Oh yeah, there are so many from my food holiday calendar audit that I do, there are more than 30 wine celebrations that I've identified, and I'm sure there are even more out there that I just have not picked up on yet, but... Yeah, there's a lot.
ANNA 0:05:53
30?
LIA 0:05:54
Yeah.
ANNA 0:05:55
That's like one every 12 days.
LIA 0:05:57
It's a lot, I'm telling you, it's a challenge to keep up with all of these days...
ANNA 0:06:02
My God, such a burden for you, Lia.
LIA 0:06:03
It's so tough. It's so tough. But yes, there are more than 30 days, and you've got these kinds of general wine days, so there's a, "Let's drink wine day", then there's just Wine Day. There's an Open That Bottle Night, and then you also have these really super specific days that celebrate a particular varietal of wine, so you'll have like a pinot noir day or a grenache day, so yeah, we're just making excuses to drink all types of wine as much as we can during the year.
ANNA 0:06:29
Were there any specific wine days that jump out at you as having really cool or interesting backstories?
LIA 0:06:36
The one that kind of got me that I had no clue about, so it was fun to learn about... This was Malbec... Well then, yeah, Malbec has Malbec World Day. And this is really fascinating. So Malbec World Day celebrated on April 17th. And this holiday was established pretty recently, I think it was 2011 when it was founded by a group called wines of Argentina, so that's the association that promotes Argentine wine, and they wanted to celebrate Malbec and really promote Argentina as a major wine destination. /Makes sense.
ANNA 0:07:08
/Right, because all Malbec is made in Argentina? Or most Malbec is made in Argentina? I think of it as an Argentinian wine.
LIA 0:07:14
Oh, me too. So not all of it is made there, but more than 75% of the world... Malbec is grown in Argentina. So yeah, like you, I always just thought Malbec is an Argentinian wine from there. That's what grows... That's where it comes from, but Malbec was not actually an Argentinian varietal.
ANNA 0:07:35
What? /Scandalous.
LIA 0:07:38
/Some people, I know! Some people say this grape had an identity crisis.
ANNA 0:07:45
Who doesn't?
LIA 0:07:47
Right. Who am I?
ANNA 0:07:50
What am I doing?
LIA 0:07:51
What am I?
ANNA 0:07:52
Where are we?
LIA 0:07:54
I feel like that sometimes.
ANNA 0:07:57
You and me both, grape.
LIA 0:07:59
So, this Malbec World Day, which is celebrated on April 17th, is a very special day. And the April 17th day actually means something, because there are a lot of food holidays where the date is pretty random, but in this case, the wines of Argentina Association picked out the 17th of April because that's the day when the Argentine statesman and journalist, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento decided to make it his mission to transform Argentina's wine industry, and by the way, this guy, I guess he did such a great job, he did go on to be president of /Argentina.
ANNA 0:08:32
/ I mean, I think it was the Malbec.
LIA 0:08:35
I think it was too. You know he really did execute on this mission, obviously, and the way he did this was he invited a French soil expert, Michele Ame Puget to bring some new varietals to the country, and what he brought over was, I think some types of Cab and The Malbec varietal. He was trying to see what could grow there. They were able to get Malbec cultivated and growing really well in Argentina.
ANNA 0:09:04
Wow. I'm not, I'm not a soil expert like Mr. Mr. Puget, but don't, France and Argentina have very different climates?
LIA 0:09:15
That's what I was wondering about like, what is the difference here? And apparently, the temperature was just a little bit warmer in Argentina, and it was because of that climate difference that it helped the grape grow versus in France, where Malbec was growing, it faced some harsher winters, and so it was a little bit more of a challenge to really thrive there.
ANNA 0:09:37
Okay, so Argentinian Malbec starts gaining on French Malbec, starts getting a little competitive.
LIA 0:09:43
So here's the crazy thing, Malbec was doing pretty well, right? But the thing that actually made it kind of skyrocket and become the export in Argentina was that in the 1950s, there was a crazy freeze that happened in France and it wiped out almost all of their Malbec vineyards.
ANNA 0:10:05
No. Plot twist. /That's amazing.
LIA 0:10:09
/Yes, that's the little bit left in France, it was like... They had a terrible freeze and then it was gone, and then that meant there was /really one place.
ANNA 0:10:18
/Argentina was like, This is our moment.
LIA 0:10:21
Yeah, it is our time /to shine.
ANNA 0:10:24
/this is a time to claim Malbec as our own. And now that I'm looking at the word Malbec, that is not a Spanish word, that is a French word.
LIA 0:10:33
They see the name Malbec came from some Frenchmen who planted it, whose name was like, Monsieur Malbec.
ANNA 0:10:38
I can see the Argentinian marketing team be like, Just throw a vowel at the end, guys. Malbeco. Vino Malbeco.
LIA 0:10:47
Bueno.
ANNA 0:10:49
Muy Bueno.
LIA 0:10:50
Muy Bueno. But Yeah, can you believe that...
ANNA 0:10:52
That is a dramatic turn of events.
LIA 0:10:56
Yes, and then by the 1990s, star varietal, Malbec, becomes the biggest wine export from Argentina. That's why we all think Malbec is from Argentina. Those are things we associate with Argentina.
ANNA 0:11:10
Yeah, that and tango.
LIA 0:11:11
Yeah, yeah.
ANNA 0:11:12
And steak. And singing from balconies.
LIA 0:11:15
Well, obviously...
ANNA 0:11:17
Don't cry for me, Malbec. Ok cool. What other wine days do we love?
LIA 0:11:27
I'm a big fan of kind of these random generic wine days. I think they're so much fun, I love the days that are just Drink Wine Day or Open That Bottle Night or wine and cheese day. And they might be random people, but I think the way we've talked about them before, these people are our heroes for starting these days.
ANNA 0:11:47
But what I really love about these Open that Bottle, Drink Wine Night, Drink Wine with Friends night is that they celebrate not just the liquid in the bottle, but the social aspect, the experience, what it means to us, right? 'cause it's not just a beverage, it's something that we share with people, it's a social drink. and it's kind of an event to open a fancy bottle of wine or celebrate with a bottle of wine. It has been for a really long time, like something we'll talk about later is wine is freaking old. It is very old. So I found this, the first artistic depiction of wine actually is a mural on a wall in the ancient city of Babylon, the historian thinks is from 4000 BC.
LIA 0:12:31
What...
ANNA 0:12:32
Seriously, that's...
LIA 0:12:33
4000 BC?
ANNA 0:12:34
That's what I mean when I say wine is frigging old.
LIA 0:12:37
That's pretty d*** old.
ANNA 0:12:40
But the cool thing is that what the mural is, is people drinking wine together, it's like people in court drinking wine together, right. So for centuries, millennia, it's been this important social, culturally significant drink, and so we're joking calling them heroes, but I feel like they're kind of taking that on, taking it to the next level and really celebrating, not just like, Oh, this varietal, or Cab Sav day or whatever, but let's drink this together.
LIA 0:13:03
The one that I think is pretty smart Is Open That Bottle Night.
ANNA 0:13:07
Yeah, tell me about that one.
LIA 0:13:09
So Open That Bottle Night is the last Saturday of February. And this was created by a couple of journalists, believe wine writers for The Wall Street Journal, so you know how we all have those special bottles of wine that we just keep locked up in our cellars, of course, right. We're just saving them for a special occasion, and we don't open them because we're like, Alright, “I'm gonna wait until something really cool happens or there's a special date to do it,” but then we never get to them. Yeah, it happened too often. Well, these writers created Open That Bottle Night as a way for us to get that special bottle and actually open it and drink it together with our friends and family.
ANNA 0:13:48
That is genius. I love that idea.
LIA 0:13:52
Oh yeah. /It's wonderful.
ANNA 0:13:53
/'cause I've totally had that of somebody... Somebody gives me a really nice bottle of wine, and I wanna save it for the special occasion, and then they don't last forever, people. They really don’t. And then finally, there's a day either you never open it, or finally, there's a day you wanna open it and it's gone bad, so sad.
LIA 0:14:11
Totally, you're right. I mean, they have a shelf life, they're not good forever, it can go bad, so you do need to open it and don't keep waiting, and thanks to Dorothy Gator and John Bretcher /wonderful writers.
ANNA0:14:21
/Shout out to Dorothy and John.
LIA 0:14:23
They created this day in the year 2000. And they put this out there by publishing an article for Open That Bottle Night, that was like a whole guide for how to celebrate, how to invite your friends and family, how to do your own little tasting. And they even had tips, which I think are really important, especially if you've had that old bottle sitting there, like what to do if the cork breaks in your wine.
ANNA 0:14:45
Oh, we'll get to that. I hate that.
LIA 0:14:47
And then also like, Hey, have a backup bottle of wine ready just in case you're in wine went bad.
ANNA 0:14:53
Yeah, that's a good idea.
LIA 0:14:55
And then this day, I love, and I celebrated it in a very special way this year.
ANNA 0:15:00
Which one?
LIA 0:15:02
It is Wine and Cheese day.
ANNA 0:15:04
Oh, yeah, I love 'em both. Love them separate. Love them together. Just love it.
LIA 0:15:09
Same here and thanks to another writer, I mean, man, all of these freelance writers are creating really great wine days, this one was started back in 2014, and I decided I'm gonna celebrate and do my part to participate fully in the wine holiday by getting my own wine and cheese pairing, which was... Okay, I'm showing you this on our little video, my box of rosé and White Cheddar Cheese-its.
ANNA 0:15:40
Holy s***. Okay.
LIA 0:15:42
/Isn't this incredible.
ANNA 0:15:44
Ok listeners. We'll link to this, but I'm gonna describe it to you, it is one box and on half the box, it's House Wine rosé with a spigot. And then the other half is white cheddar cheese-its, and it's my favorite thing I've ever seen in my life.
LIA 0:15:58
Oh my God, I was so excited when I saw them release this. They did a limited edition last year and it flew off the shelves. Sold out online in minutes, and so the second I heard that they had a new limited edition box for this year's wine and cheese Day, I was waiting by the computer for the launch to happen and I snagged a box.
ANNA 0:16:18
It's like the Coachella of snacks. Just open all the different browser tabs, you're in their trying to get your/ wine and Cheese-it box.
LIA 0:16:26
/ I was like Refreshing. Refresh, is it there yet? And I was so excited to get it. So this thing is like, what, four, the equivalent of four bottles of rosé in the wine half of the box, and then the cheese-its the white cheddar cheese-its, there's about what they say are 20 servings of cheese. Now, I don't know what that translates to Like for Lia servings, probably more like three or four, but... It's a great pairing too. It was like, Yeah, this is awesome.
ANNA 0:16:58
And I never would have thought of that. I never would have thought of white cheddar crackers to go with a rosé. I love that that's a suggested pairing, even though I was not waiting in 10 browser tabs to procure this. I'm going to live vicariously through you, now I wanna try that pairing...
LIA 0:17:12
Oh, you should. I highly recommend a rosé and white cheddar pairing because this was good,
ANNA 0:17:17
Especially if it comes in a box with a handle...
LIA 0:17:20
Oh, totally. It makes it so easy and convenient.
ANNA 0:17:23
Excellent, cheese-its, if you wanna sponsor this episode... Yeah, just give us a call.
LIA 0:17:28
We're here, we're ready to cheese-it and cheer it.
ANNA 0:17:32
Cheese-it, slide into our DMS, and let's cheer it. You know what I'm saying?
LIA 0:17:36
Yeah.
MUSIC 0:17:37
ANNA 0:17:53
There's like three rosé days.
LIA 0:17:55
Yeah, so speaking of Rose.
ANNA 0:17:58
What is the story of the three rosé days?
LIA 0:18:00
So rosé is obviously pretty popular.
ANNA 0:18:05
Well right, Rosé all day. I mean, you have to get a certain level of popularity to get your own shirts at target...
LIA 0:18:11
Very true, very true. Well, with rosé day, there's...
ANNA 0:18:14
Oh wait, if we are gonna talk about rosé, Lia, should I crack open... Should we shift to rosé/ as we are talking?
LIA 0:18:18
/ Oh my gosh. Yeah, we should. We should change wines.
ANNA 0:18:25
We should switch wines. Alright, I'm reaching in, I'm going to try a Paper planes, Flight school, rosé from the Sonoma Coast. Alright, here we go, we're gonna try this. These are all of cans, by the way, everyone. Putting our money where our mouth is. That's lovely. It's like light and smooth and sweet. What a cute rosé.
LIA 0:18:53
I want, I'll get one of those.
ANNA 0:18:55
Get one of those. Alright, back to the task at hand. 3 rosé days.
LIA 0:19:04
3 rosé days. This is like a crazy food holiday calendar conflict, it's pretty hotly debated in the food holiday calendar crowd. Yeah, so here's the thing, the Rosé Day that I first knew about, celebrated on the second Saturday of June, and I read that this holiday was started in 2015 by a very popular Swedish rosé maker named Bodvar Hofstra... Yeah, also known as Bodvar House of rosés. If you go to the Bodvar website, they actually claim to be the quote Institutor of National rosé Day in the US, and in fact, when they first celebrated it in 2015, they did so with a huge bang, they held a party in the Hamptons.
ANNA 0:19:55
They know their market.
LIA 0:19:57
Yes, they do.
ANNA 0:19:58
Brilliant.
LIA 0:19:59
And they knew for sure that the goal was to spread awareness of what they call summers water all over the world and to get their bottles into the hands of a bunch of celebrities and in front of a whole branded step and repeat. Mr. Bodvar went on to do interviews to help promote the special day, and I think you just need to listen to this interview that Bodvar did with the ladies of Good Morning, La La Land to promote National Rosé Day.
ANNA 0:20:25
I can't wait. Let's do this.
CLIP 0:20:27 <0:00-01:30,
“GOOD MORNING LA LA LAND>
Announcer 1 “Live from Los Angeles, welcome back to Good Morning La La Land in honor of National Rose Day tomorrow. We have the founder, himself in the house. Thank you for being with us today.
Bodvar Oh I love being here thank you.
Announcer 2 Rose, all day. Who in the world does that. Like, what was the moment where you were like, I’m gonna declare this as a national day.
Bodvar I can tell you it was 2015 in New York on an outside patio and I was actually sitting with some good friends. And I was just coming up with, why doesn’t rose wine have its own day? To celebrate happiness, to celebrate summer and love, exactly. So, in 2015 I came back with that, and same year we had our opening event in the Hamptons and it was such a fabulous, you know, start of this, you know, big thing. The phenomena. Very Very much.
Announcer 1 It is a phenomena. Rose is an absolute trend. It’s a force to be reckoned with. For years now. What is it about this summer water?
Bodvar What rose wine does is actually a form of luxury. "
ANNA 0:21:39
Lia, I can't decide if I love the term “summers water” or if I hate it and never want to hear it again.
LIA 0:21:49
Yeah, I think I know. I'm kind of hating it.
ANNA 0:21:55
Okay, That's Rosé Day number one.
LIA 0:21:57
That's Rosé Day number one. Bodvar's Rosé Day. And then there's another Rosé Day on the fourth Friday of June. So not just a couple of weeks after Bodvar's day, but this one was started in 2018 by the Organization International de Rosé, it's an organization in Provence, of course, that decided rosé should be on the fourth Friday of June.
ANNA 0:22:21
So why didn't they just go with Bodvar’s?
LIA 0:22:25
I feel like they're saying, Well, we're French, we want our own rosé and our day is gonna be international, not national in a day in the US. This is like...
ANNA 0:22:38
I see that. I can see the French being like, Non. Non, we will not glide the coattails of your rosé day. We want our on Rosé Day. Sorry, I'm sorry French people. that was terrible. So the answer is, they made their own day just 'cause...
LIA 0:22:58
Yeah, just because.
ANNA 0:22:59
Just Cuz. Did they have a party in the Hamptons?
LIA 0:23:00
No, they didn't. They probably had theirs on the Cote D'azur. Yeah, so that was the second day. Okay, and now there is even a third day, and this day was actually started...
ANNA 0:23:14
This is like... This is like a smackdown, this is like... a celebrity rivalry between Rosé Days, it's like I feel the heat. Okay, alright, so who is this daring third party, they decided to enter into this fray, this rosé fray...
LIA 0:23:30
Well, here is the crazy part. This third party, this Rosé Day celebration was started in 2005, so way before the Bodvar Day...
ANNA 0:23:41
Yeah, that's the OG, the OG day.
LIA 0:23:44
It is the OG day. And their day is on August 14th, so August 14th, 2005. There was a food blog called Wine geeks that was written by, for somelies, and they wrote and published this article proclaiming August 14th in 2005 to be national Rosé Day.
ANNA 0:24:02
So they were way ahead of the curve.
LIA 0:24:04
They really were, but I guess because it was just like a humble blog, right. In that time, it was kind of tough.
ANNA 0:24:11
They did not have a whole organization behind them, they weren't being backed by Big Rosé, the rosé, the rosé lobby.
LIA 0:24:19
The rosé lobby. No, they didn't have the step and repeat in the Hamptons party either, but they were really the first.
ANNA 0:24:27
Okay, so now we have kind of a big decision, Lia, here at Every Day is a Food Day, which of the three rosé days are we gonna back... Which are we gonna say is the official...
LIA 0:24:37
I'm going on the record and saying that the official day is August 14th, the day that was proclaimed declared by wine geeks dot com.
ANNA 0:24:47
You heard it first, folks. Here on Every Day as a Food Day, the definitive authority on legitimate food and beverage holidays. We endorse August 14th as Rosé day.
LIA 0:25:01
I mean, we should celebrate on all the days...
ANNA 0:25:03
Yeah, I mean, we're gonna drink rosé on all the days, that wasn't the question, Lia.
LIA 0:25:08
But, we could go really hard on the 14 of August. /Perfect.
ANNA 0:25:11
/I love that there. God, there are a lot of wine holidays. We better get busy.
LIA 0:25:17
I know.
ANNA 0:25:19
Alright, we've covered our holidays. Should we get deep into deep dish?
LIA 0:25:22
Yeah, let's get deep.
ANNA 0:25:24
Alright, next in our deep dish segment, I'm going to look at wine’s, alternative packaging craze, and answer the question, what is the best wine container, good old bottles or boxes or cans. Stick around.
LIA 0:25:54
Should we take another little wine sip break? Crack open a new one?
ANNA 0:25:59
Crack open the next wine. Should I go with my next can or so I switch to this box.
LIA 0:26:05
I think I'm gonna pour a little bit out from from this box wine that I have out.
ANNA 0:26:09
Should we box wine it together?
LIA 0:26:11
Yeah. Lets do it. Alrighty.
ANNA 0:26:18
<pouring>
BOTH 0:26:23
Cheers! Clink!
ANNA 0:26:25
Now we move on to our Deep Dish segment, which is the part of the show where I, Anna, get super nerdy and go down a rabbit hole of research and exploration on some topic related to the food or beverage at hand that intrigues me. Okay, so here, today we're talking about wine. We heard about all these wine holidays. I've seen all of these new containers, all of a sudden there's and cans There's six-packs of wine, there's juice boxes there's pouches, I've never seen that before. It was just straight-up bottles forever, and it turns out it is forever. Like, Like Wine is really old, and it hasn't changed in a really long time, and then all of a sudden in the last few years, you've seen all these different containers. So when I say wine is old and it hasn't changed, let me give you actual facts to back that up. So first of all, the oldest evidence of wine is from like 8000 years ago, from 6000 BC, and then in 5000 BC, we see the first evidence of containers, which is basically barrels in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. They just had sticks bound with leather to transport their wine barrels...
LIA 0:27:41
Interesting.
ANNA 0:27:43
Like if you go to a winery today, they're still barrels, right? Then in 3000 BC in Egypt, they started putting wine and clay jugs sealed with beeswax, which sort of the predecessor to wine bottles. Right, and get this on the outside of the clay drugs, they would mark the date the line was made, the name of the vinter, the winemaker, and the region it was made of so... Lia, What does that sound like to you?
LIA 0:28:09
Totally sounds like, you know the wine label that we see right now...
ANNA 0:28:13
So it's like 5000 years ago, Egyptians made up the wine label and all of civilization was like, Cool, we'll stick with that. Then all the way to 1600 AD or BCE, I guess, is when you see glass bottles with cork stoppers. And then, that's pretty much it. In the 20th century, there's been some small changes like synthetic corks or screw tops, which by the way, have a name. They're called stelvins.
LIA 0:28:38
What? I never knew that. Stelvins.
ANNA 0:28:41
A stelvin. Yeah. Wow, your friends.
LIA 0:28:49
I feel so smart.
ANNA 0:28:51
Impress your zoom date. Anyway, stelvins, and then there's Franzia, good old Franzia's WineTap bag in a box concept, and that's it, so pretty much for thousands of years, we've done wine one way. And so my question was like, Why is this changing in the last two years, and is it a fad or is it for real, right. So one big reason why it's changing is us, Lia it's millennials.
LIA 0:29:23
We did it again.
ANNA 0:29:26
Oops. We did - as a famous millennial once said, Oops I did it again. Yeah, it turns out wine bottles, glass wine bottles is yet another thing that millennials ruined. Sorry, it's like wine bottles, Toys R Us….
LIA 0:29:44
Circuit City.
ANNA 0:29:45
Applebees.
LIA 0:29:47
Applebees.
ANNA 0:29:48
So Millennials, Let's be clear. People born from 1981 to 1996, people who are 24 to 39. So that's us.
LIA 0:29:59
So us, Yeah.
ANNA 0:30:01
So Millennials Are the largest chunk of the population, and we're all drinking age now. So Millennials' preferences and habits are really driving changes and trends in the beverage industry, just like a lot of industries, right? So research shows that in general, Millennials want wine that is portable, affordable, tech-savvy, health-conscious, eco-friendly is really important and less fussy, we're just not that pretentious about our wine, as we just proved.
LIA 0:30:37
I just showed you...
ANNA 0:30:39
As we just proved, we prefer our line in boxes with handles.
LIA 0:30:43
Right. You know what I might be okay with a stelvin.
ANNA 0:30:48
Does that mean I don't have to mess with foil? Done.
LIA 0:30:52
Right. I mean, I would rather it be easy to drink the wine then fancy... Right. I don't wanna work.
ANNA 0:31:00
Look man, have to work so hard to get through the day. I don't wanna work to get to my wine...
LIA 0:31:05
Yeah, don't make me.
ANNA 0:31:08
Okay, for future reference, all our episodes will be taped while we're drinking wine, even if it's not about wine.
LIA 0:31:14
I think so. I feel like this is the format, guys.
ANNA 0:31:17
I feel loose, I feel happy. We've had a breakthrough today on Every Day Is a Food Day. “Someday we were doing our spinach episode, it'll be like... Before I do a deep philosophical dive into the psyche of Popeye on this spinach episode... I'm gonna break into this sauvignon blanc.” Is there a spinach flavor, cheeze-it? Something to look into.
LIA 0:31:48
I don’t know. Cheeze it - call us.
ANNA 0:31:51
So Millennials' preferences, just like these are really driving trends in the beverage industry and the alcoholic beverage industry, and one of those is alternative packages, bottles, cans, even things like pouches, slushies, ice cream, things like that. Today we're gonna talk about bottles, boxes, and cans. So my first question is, are they actually as good as bottles. You know what I mean? Is it a fashionable fad thing, or are they actually good containers or are we all just drinking wine out of a cardboard box 'cause the rest of our money goes to our student loans? Inquiring millennial wants to know. That's the first question. But I know somebody who would 100% argue that wine and boxes is better...
LIA 0:32:44
Really? Who was this person?
ANNA 0:32:47
Let me tell you about my Grandpa Chet. You guys, I'm gonna talk about my grandpa Chet often, 'cause he's the best grandpa is a 96-year-old jazz musician with a lot of opinions. He is definitely where I get my performing gene and my ranting gene, and why I am terrified I'm gonna live forever. So my grandpa has a lot of opinions, which he would be really excited to share with you, and one of those is about wine. Okay, Here's the thing. He only drinks boxed Wine Because he says that the bottles are only for And I quote, “snob factor.” He says that they only put wine in bottles so they can charge snobby people more money, and you can get just as good wine in boxes, and people don't wanna buy wine in boxes because they are snobs. Yeah. So it's always been kind of like a family joke. Like my grandparents live that sweet, sweet Franzia life, since I was born, they've had a box of Franzia Merlot on the counter in their kitchen, and Readers Digest told them, I think in 1971, that having a small glass of red wine with dinner every day is good for you.
LIA 0:3414
Right.
ANNA 0:34:15
I mean they're 96.
LIA 0:34:16
Yeah, so it obviously works
ANNA 0:34:17
Reader’s Digest, it has a point. But as I was doing research on this on different containers for wine, I started thinking like, Is my grandpa right? Is he right after all these years? All this time grandpa has a point? So our questions we're gonna focus on in this Deep Dish are, first of all, what is actually the best container for wine, bottles, cans, or boxes? And has Grandpa Chet been right all along? Can you get just as good wine in boxes as you can in bottles, and is the bottle just for “snob factor.” Okay, so that's what we're gonna dig into on our Deep Dish today.
MUSIC 0:35:11
ANNA 0:35:14
So first we're gonna look at what's the best wine container, and I just don't want this to be subjective, to bring my... Just my own opinions to things... Right, I wanna be objective. So I did a little study, I did some research, I did some testing, not gonna lie. And I scored each of the three container types from one to five, on the Following characteristics. Ready?
LIA 0:35:39
Yes.
ANNA 0:35:40
Value, portability, fussiness, Eco-friendliness quality, and reputation... Yeah, that's what I'm calling snob factor. I didn't want... You don't wanna say... I don't wanna say snob factor, I wanna say reputation.
LIA 0:36:01
Reputation. I also love it that you have this system for scoring or rubric.
ANNA 0:36:09
Lia, I forget how weird I am because I'm the daughter of two scientists, and then I do something like "I have this question about wine, I'm gonna do an experiment," I'm gonna gather my data...
LIA 0:36:20
You need one of those poster boards.
ANNA 0:36:22
The tri-fold. Science Fair.
LIA 0:36:27
Hypothesis. So tell me about your study. I'm excited.
ANNA 0:36:32
Ok, so for some metrics, we're gonna go by the industry-standard metrics for volume, so a standard glass of wine is 150ml on a standard bottle of wine is 750ml, one bottle is equivalent to five glasses, and again, that's the industry standard. If your, you know, if your pour is a little heavier we are not here to judge.
LIA 0:37:00
No, no judgment.
ANNA 0:37:01
Okay, round one value. We need a little... A little boxing bell-like, Round 1: Ding ding! <BELL SOUND>
ANNA 0:37:11
Okay, bottles, as far as cost goes, there's a huge range. Okay, but we'll go with averages, so according to Vivino.com, the median price for a bottle of average quality wine is $15.04 or about $3 per glass, okay. but all these containers, you are paying for the actual container, you're not just paying for the liquid. Yeah.
LIA 0:37:37
Yeah.
ANNA 0:37:39
Glass itself is expensive, just pure glass is really expensive, and since glass bottles are heavy, they're hard to pack, they're expensive to transport. And value isn't just cost, it's also Does the wine last, Is it gonna stay good? Is it gonna go back immediately, right? So open bottle is only good for about five days, alright, so it can stay fresher longer with a synthetic cork or a stelvin, but if it's just you or you and a friend, you do run the risk of opening it and not finishing it and then having to dump it which is a waste.
LIA 0:38:18
So sad.
ANNA 0:38:20
You can age wine, the only way to age wine is in a glass bottle with a natural cork stopper and no foil in the top, but it's still sensitive to light air and temperature, so it can easily go bad. So that's why we need Open up Bottle Night.
LIA 0:38:37
We do. It's very important…
ANNA 0:38:39
The cost of canned wine tends to be pretty middle of the road. For example, a 4 pack of Bev Sauvignon Blanc is $14.99 - similar to the $15.04 for the average bottle. However, it tends to be lower cost per glass because of the SIZE of the cans. Let me explain: most cans are 250 to 375 milliliters. And remember, one glass is 150 milliliters. In that 4-pack of Bev wine I mentioned, each can is 250ml, meaning that the whole pack is actually a full liter, which is equivalent to one and a third bottles or 7 glasses of wine. So the cost per glass comes out to $2.14. Cans are also a good value because, since they are individual servings, you don’t run the risk of opening one and not drinking it before the wine goes bad. Okay, so cost for boxes, there's a reason why depression era people and college freshman buy box wine, it is... You get the most bang for your buck. Let's just. How can I say this in a positive way? It's the most cost-efficient. Boxes are the most cost-efficient. Okay, so a good time box of Franzia is five ltrs which is 35 glasses of wine, and it costs about $13.99, which comes out to 34 cents a glass.
LIA 0:40:06
Oh yeah, I get It.
ANNA 0:40:10
I've had those days. And that's definitely something that box wine companies did, all these box wine companies are popping up, are really leaning into as a selling point, so here is a very dramatic commercial from Black Box Wine.
CLIP 0:40:26
<BLACK BOX WINE COMMERCIAL>
“To get the quality of award-winning bottled wine for 40% less, lose the bottle.”
ANNA 0:40:34
But not only is it low cost, it's a good value because the wine stay is good for up to five weeks after you open the box. (Wow) Yeah. Ok, so the value score is: bottles 3, cans 4, boxes 4. Now we need a little “ta-da”! <“TA-DA!”>
Next round portability. <BELL SOUND> So first of all, bottles suck. Man, remember taking a bottle of wine and having a roll around in the back of your car and you are like...Oh god, Don't break. Right, it's a weird shape. The glass is breakable, you always need to accouterment, You need a glass or bottle opener, in a lot of public places have restrictions on glass, so if you're going to a park or the beach, you can't take it with you. Boxes, boxes are okay. Right, it's an easy shape, so it's easy to stack, easy to pack, but it's bulky. I mean, you're not gonna throw a 5-liter box of Franzia in your bag...
LIA 0:41:43
Yeah, it would be a little tough.
ANNA 0:41:46
And you still do need, you need a glass - unless you're drinking it, right out of the spigot in which case, we're not judging you. Live your best life. And cans are perfect for portability. They’re individual servings, you can throw it in your bag, there are way fewer restrictions on aluminum and you don't need any of the accouterment at all. Perfect. Oh and also if you're drinking a white wine or rosé or something that you want to keep cold, aluminum keeps wine colder longer than cardboard and glass.
LIA 0:42:20
Oh, I like that.
ANNA 0:42:23
So portability score: bottles 1, Cans 5, boxes 3. <TA-DA!> Round three, Fussiness. <BELL SOUND>
LIA 0:42:39
Ooh, The Fuss Factor.
ANNA 0:42:40
The Fuss Factor. Bottles, so fussy, so needy. Fussy bottles, you gotta deal with the foil, you gotta deal with the cork, you need a bottle opener. The cork can break, can crumble, Gotta fish it out. Oh my god, it's the worst. And you need a glass again unless you're just drinking it, right, unless you're just pouring it straight in your mouth. Boxes again are okay, you don't need any accouterment except a glass. Cans, Zero fuss. You need nothing but your finger in your mouth. That sounded weird. So Fussiness score: bottles 1 again, Cans 5, Boxes 4. <TA-DA!> Alright. Round four. Eco-friendliness. <BELL SOUND> Okay, this is one of the biggest reasons why consumers are getting more interested in boxes and cans, and why smaller up-and-coming wineries are choosing alternative packaging over glass. Okay, so when we talk about this, keep in mind that 90% of the wine in the US is made in California, on the West coast, but the majority of the US population is in the eastern half of the country, and you gotta get it there. So if you think about hauling a truckload of wine from California to New York... Right. That's a huge carbon footprint. You know, glass is heavy, it's not easily packed, it is a pain to transport and you pretty much have to transport it, glass is really hard to recycle. It varies from county to county, not every county will recycle class. Plus the screw tops, and I'm sorry, the stelvins and synthetic cork are not recyclable like synthetic cork lives forever. Right. So Eco-friendliness, not good. Boxes are so much better. Okay, not only is the cardboard very easy to recycle but transporting it is so much easier. An article in the New York Times by a guy named Tyler Colman uses this example. “A standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine and generates about 52 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions when it travels from a vineyard in California to a store in New York, a three-liter box of wine generates about half the emissions per 750 milliliters. So switching to wine in a box for the 97% of lines that are made to be consumed within a year, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons year or the equivalent of retiring 400000 cars.”
LIA 0:45:29
What a crazy impact.
ANNA 0:45:31
Right, I never even thought about that. It makes a huge difference. And then cans are also very good, aluminum is very light, it adds not a lot of weight to the liquid when you're transporting it, and aluminum is the second easiest material to recycle after steel, it's also the most frequently recycled. So according to the EPA, only 26.4% of glass containers actually get recycled, whereas beer and soft drink cans get recycled 55% of the time, so more than twice as much.
LIA 0:46:05
Oh my gosh.
ANNA 0:46:06
Right. So the eco-friendliness score is bottles 1, cans 5, boxes 4. <TA-DA!> Round five: Quality. <BELL SOUND> So we gotta hand into bottles on this. There's a huge range, you got your Two Buck Chuck over here, and then you've got the world's most expensive wine, which I believe is $550,000.
LIA 0:46:29
Holy crap.
ANNA 0:45:31
So if you're wondering, should I buy a house or should I buy a bottle of wine? You have options. Yeah. Cans are pretty good. As I've become a canned wine connoisseur, I've been really impressed by the quality of wine, especially by vineyards and winemakers who are starting out making wine for cans. Boxes as far as quality goes. Quality is not what it's known for.
LIA 0:46:57
It's not known for that, yeah.
ANNA 0:46:58
Not what it's known for, which is, okay, it can just be the official wine of your cousin's baby shower, and that's okay. It is getting better. There are several companies that are really focusing on box wine, there are lots of reputable companies that are beginning to put their most popular wines into boxes, so you have a lot more options than what there has been in the past. But as of right now, it's a bit limited, a bit limited we'll say. So, Quality score is bottles 5, cans 3, and boxes 2. <TA-DA!>
LIA 0:47:40
Oh yeah, I mean, it's gotta go to bottles...
ANNA 0:47:44
Yeah. And our last round, final round Reputation, or as my grandpa would call it, “Snob Factor.” <BELL SOUND> Bottles obviously have the best reputation, it's not even reputation, it's just that's what you think of when you think of wine, Right? They're the default, they're also beautiful and elegant and sophisticated. Cans aren't as well known. It's a relatively new concept, and so it doesn't have a really strong take on a reputation yet, but the people that know about them, especially in the winemaker community, really think highly of it. We're used to drinking beverages out of cans, we're used to drinking beer and soft drinks and things like that, and so wine itself is to a little bit novel, but drinking beverages out of cans is not. It is also seen as kind of trendy and independent and fun, it's used in a lot of activities on-the-go things, and I think especially with younger people, so again, its reputation is limited, but it's really positive. And in general, box wine's reputation is not great. Not good, it's still seen as kind of trashy and cheap and you know, that's what I used to use for my fundraisers at my theater company, things like that. You know it's kind of a modern equivalent of jug wine. But that's been improving with these new companies investing in it, and it's been improving because Franzia has been going all-in on rehabilitating box wines image. So just like we talked about at the beginning, that millennials are really leading the charge in a lot of trends in the beverage industry, they are targeting millennials. So last year, they put out their first commercials in 35 years. It was a whole ad campaign called “Thank you for being a Franz.”
CLIP 0:49:46
<FRANZIA COMMERCIAL, “THANK YOU FOR BEING A FRANZ”>
Singer 1 “Thank you for being a Franz.
Singer 2 Travel down the road and back again.
Singer 1 Your heart is true.
Singer 2 Your a pal and a confidante.
Both Ba Ba Ba!”
LIA 0:50:03
Oh my goodness.
ANNA 0:50:04
So yes, they take the Golden Girls theme song, and it shows this group of younger adults, people in their 20s and 30s going through these adult-ing milestones, right. One person is trying to cook their first Friendsgiving dinner and one person is about to get married, and one person is doing a birthday party for their dog, which I really get. This is my favorite vignette is where a bunch of friends cheer on a guy while another friend cuts off his man bun. Which really is a moment of growing up as isn’t it. That’s the moment he became a man.
LIA 0:50:45
Real FRANZ-ship.
ANNA 0:50:48
Best Franz forever.
LIA 0:50:52
Oh, that's so sweet.
ANNA 0:50:53
Yeah, so this is a really bold move, right, of them trying to change their whole persona, that's definitely not what I thought of when I thought of Franzia. So the reputation score is bottles five, cans three, boxes two. <TA-DA!> Poor boxes. Alright, a final tally.
LIA 0:51:17
Oh yeah, yeah. Let’s hear the results.
< DRUMROLL >
ANNA 0:51:21
Bottles 16. Boxes, 20.
LIA 0:51:27
Oh, whoa.
ANNA 0:51:29
Cans, 25.
< SYMBOL >
LIA 0:51:34
High score.
ANNA 0:51:34
High score, cans is the winner.
LIA 0:51:37
That's incredible.
ANNA 0:51:38
Isn't that amazing?
LIA 0:51:39
I wouldn't have thought that cans would come out that far ahead in the Game. But as you talked through it, it totally made sense, it would hit on a lot of those categories.
ANNA 0:51:50
Well, when you start thinking about all these different aspects and impacts of the wine, it does start to make sense. Right, so by my obviously, very scientific, objective, peer-review study, soon to be published in, I believe, Wine Scientific American, cans are the best receptacle for wine. So that's the first question. So the second question is, was my Grandpa right? [was grandpa right?] So here's what it came down to. Okay. Grandpa's kind of right. Grandpa has a point, right? I don't think he's right that you can get just as good wine in boxes as you can in bottles. I don't think that's true, but you can get decent wine in a box. You know, and I think he absolutely is right, that reputation or snob factor is a huge part of this. I really do think that the reputation of bottles is part of why people are drawn to it, and I think that the reputation of boxes is why people don't drink it. So Grandpa's kinda right. He's kinda right. He will not be satisfied with that answer, BTW.
LIA 0:53:10
You're gonna get a talking to.
ANNA 0:53:12
I'm still gonna give him his box of Franzia with a Bow on it for Christmas, so I still gonna be favorite grandchild this year, again. So as I came to these conclusions, I started thinking about why these boxes and cans and all these different things to started come in now, like we said, wine is really old and hasn't changed that much, and I think that that is why: The bottles didn't change, but we did. Yeah, and the bottle didn't adapt to our changing values and lifestyles and needs, and that created room for these other alternative packages to come in, which means we just have a lot more options. Right? But the thing is if we still have These other options, why do we still go back to bottles?
LIA 0:54:00
Yeah. Why do we still go back?
ANNA 0:54:01
Food stories are people stories, right. Wine stories are people's stories too. I think that is it. I think that's the people side of it, I think that it has a lot less to do with the convenience or the liquid in the bottle, and I think it has more to do with our emotional connection to it, right there is just something special to opening a bottle of wine. There's just something like I was saying, people don't people don't write songs about tapping a box of wine. They write songs about popping bottles.
LIA 0:54:30
It is all about popping bottles.
ANNA 0:54:31
If you think about a romantic date night or a toast at a wedding, there is something really visceral about popping the cork, getting that first whiff of wine, and the sound of it pouring into a glass. And I think that we're willing to pay for that, we're willing to have something a little less convenient, maybe a little more expensive to have that visceral emotional experience. < THEME MUSIC > So I think the bottom line of what we've talked about today is just, there's no one-size-fits-all, right? There's no one container-fits-all. We have options depending on what's important to you or what you need in that moment, whether that is the portability of it or the ease of it, or the Eco-consciousness of it. Right? There's a wine for everybody.
LIA 0:55:14
There's a wine for everyone. I love that.
ANNA 0:55:15
So listeners We encourage you to try some of these things out. We'll have links to some of the brands that we've talked about today. And... Yeah, so crack open a can or have a box and enjoy.
LIA 0:55:30
YAY!
ANNA 0:55:31
Cheers.
LIA 0:55:32
Cheers. <clink>
CREDITS 0:55:49
0:55:50 ANNA
Thank you for joining us today for this episode of Every Day is a Food Day.
0:55:54 LIA
Be sure to subscribe, and please rate and review the show to help other listeners find it. Connect with us on Instagram and Twitter @FoodDayPod and join our Facebook group. We want to hear from you!
0:56:07 ANNA
The clips you heard today were from Good Morning La La Land, Black Box Wine and Franzia Wines.
0:56:12 LIA
EDFD is a production of Van Valin Productions and YumDay. It was created by Lia Ballentine and Anna Van Valin. Our sound designer is Steve Thompson, our production intern is Emma Massey, our marketing intern is Eric Chinn.
0:56:26 ANNA
See you next time…