The Wine Pair Podcast

Boxed Wine Unboxed: Bota Box and La Vieille Ferme!

• The Wine Pair • Season 1 • Episode 171

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Boxed wine sucks - or does it?!? When a listener suggested we do an episode on boxed wine given all of the nuttiness with tariffs and rising wine prices, we said “Why the eff not?!?” Look, we may be wine reviewers and have our own fancy-pants wine podcast, but that doesn’t mean we are too good for boxed wine. And, we think you will be very surprised to learn about how popular boxed wine has become, not only in the US but across the world. And, we think you will be surprised by our reviews of the wines we tasted. So there’s a there there if you are willing to open your mind. We also think you will be very surprised to learn about the history of boxed wine - which should probably be called bagged wine, or bladder wine, BTW - and how good of a bargain it can really be. Wines reviewed in this episode: Bota Box Pinot Grigio, La Vieille Ferme Red Wine Vin Rouge

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Show Notes

Episode #171: Boxed Wine Unboxed: Bota Box and La Vieille Ferme! 00:00

Hello! And welcome to The Wine Pair Podcast. I’m Joe, your sommelier of reasonably priced wine, and this is my wife and my wine pairing partner in crime, Carmela. And we are The Wine Pair!

If you are new to our podcast, here is what you can expect. If you love wine and want to find great wines at affordable prices, and you want to expand your wine horizons, and you want to have some laughs and fun while doing it - then you are in the right place! Each week we explore a different wine varietal, style, brand, or region of the winemaking world, and learn about what makes them worth knowing about. And then we taste 2-3 of those wines that are reasonably priced to let you know if they are worth your hard earned money. If that feels like your vibe, then we are super happy you are here.And, we are proud to say that Decanter Magazine calls us fun, irreverent, chatty, and entertaining.

Carmela, you may wonder why we are doing an episode on boxed wine. Well, a few weeks ago, a listener of ours named Maria K responded to our newsletter with this question:
“Now that everyone is worried about our job security, inflation, and our 401K plans, what do you think about reviewing some box wines? I remember having some Bota Nighthawk Black red blend a few years ago and thinking that it wasn't too horrible.  But then I'm a low brow sort of gal. ;-)”

We love this question, including being ok with it “not being too horrible” and I have honestly been sitting on a boxed wine episode for a while, wondering when the right time to resurrect them would be, and this is the perfect excuse, so thank you, Maria! And, with summer coming very soon, boxed wine could be on the menu if you have friends and family over for a cookout or a party and you need to take care of them economically. So, it just feels like the right time to do it!

Now, if you go into the wayback machine, before we knew what the hell we were doing in our podcast - which assumes we know what we are doing now - in our first 20 episodes we did three that were part of a series - that we actually stopped doing - called “Cork Free” - and in those episodes, we would review wines that came in packaging without a cork, as you would expect, including canned wines, screw cap bottle wines, and one we called “Cork Free! Boxed Wine - Pinot Grigio”

So, we have done boxed wine in the past, but really only ventured into it once. And we are not suggesting you go back to that episode, which is episode 11, because I am actually afraid of what you are going to hear. 

But, back to boxed wine - did you know it is growing in popularity, Carmela? Yes, and Maria is spot on by calling out that with prices rising on most everything, including wine as we deal with tariffs, maybe it is time to do a serious expose’ or unboxing of boxed wine to see if it is as bad as its reputation is, or at least its reputation was. 

Interestingly enough, there are some higher-end boxed wines out there that are trying to change perceptions of boxed wines overall. In a future episode, we may do an episode or two on those “luxury” boxed wines like Gratsi, Evolution, Juliet, or Really Good Wine if any of you are interested in us checking those out. We would like to do it, but we want to see if you all have any interest, so please let us know because these wines take some effort to buy, so we only want to do it if you actually care. We can stick with this ongoing theme of episodes under Boxed Wine Unboxed if you like the idea. 

For this episode, though, we thought we would start out with some boxed wines that are pretty easy to find, but have at least a decent reputation. 

Now, in our deep dive section on what exactly boxed wine is and the story behind where it came from, which may really surprise you, because it surprised me, but before we do that, we wanted to just touch on briefly this real rise in popularity.

The latest statistics take us through about 2023, but since the year 2000, boxed wine has been growing in popularity. Between 2018 and 2023, helped in part by COVID, boxed wine sales grew 30% in the United States. By contrast, in recent years, overall wine sales in the US declined by 5%. In 1998, boxed wine represented less than 1% of wine sales, and today it is about 10% of total sales in the US, so that is a huge increase.

Even more than that, by consumption, boxed wine is said to be 17% of wine consumption in the US today. Which makes sense because boxed wine costs are lower, so as sales rise, consumption rises even more. 

And, believe it or not, boxed wine consumption is also growing in Europe, the UK, and Canada. In fact, an article from The Times in London says that 45% of wine sold in grocery stores in France is boxed wine. In France! I find that hard to believe! In Canada, there is a similar trend to the US with boxed wines growing in sales while wine in bottles decreased by 14% in 2023. 

There are several reasons why this is happening, and some of the reasons that we will dig into in a few minutes are, obviously cost, but also the fact that it stays fresh much longer, and because boxed wines are considered much more eco-friendly. But, they still suffer from a bad reputation overall, and we think it’s time to see if that reputation should stick.

So, we have two boxed wines that we are going to drink and review today, including La Vieille Ferme Red Wine - famously known as The Chicken Wine - and Bota Box Pinot Grigio to see if either of them are worth checking out  . . . 

But first . . . we have to do our shameless plug.

Thank you for listening to us and for supporting our show, and if you haven’t  had the chance to do so yet, now would be the perfect time to follow or subscribe to our podcast and leave us a nice rating and review  to help us grow our listeners - and a huge thank you to all of you who have subscribed already! 

You can also follow us on Instagram at thewinepairpodcast, and on Bluesky. You can contact us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com, and you can sign up for our email newsletter there and you can also visit our “Shop Wine” and “Shop Accessories” sections where you can find links to buy the wines that we rate as buys in each episode and accessories we think are great choices for wine lovers and as gifts, too. 

And we want to make content you care about and you like, so send us a note or DM us and give us some feedback or let us know if there are wines you want us to try or wine making areas of the world you are curious about - and we’ll take care of it! joe@thewinepairpodcast.com

  • Big shoutout to Christine K who shared some pictures of her recent trip to the wine region in the Douro which is what we talked about last week. Beautiful pictures!
  • A shoutout to new listener John who reached out to be added to the email newsletter list!
  • Shout out to Chris in Seattle who DM’ed us on IG and suggested we do some more food and wine tie-ins which we haven’t done for a long time.
  • And what would a shoutout be without a shoutout to Timmysvino who shared a couple of videos of his dinner at Guy Savoy in Vegas where they were tasting crazy good champagne by the glass and a 1990 Domaine Leroy Grand Cru from Burgundy. That will not be on the podcast, but that is a dream wine.


And, as we do every week, we’ll tell you someone we think you should recommend The Wine Pair Podcast to - because the best way for us to grow listeners is when you tell your family and friends about us - and this week, we want you to recommend us to anyone who is frustrated by higher wine prices and/or is curious about boxed wine and if it is any good. Because they may really enjoy learning about what we are going to cover today!


RESEARCH ARTICLES AND LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE


Topic: WTF is Boxed Wine? 11:07

Carmela, let’s spend a little time talking about just what the fuck boxed wine is and where it came from, shall we?

The first thing I need to say is that boxed wine is a bit of a misnomer because the wine, at least in the big boxes, is actually in a bag or bladder, and that bag is placed in a box. So, it should be called bagged wine or bladder wine, right? Although, I am not sure that people want to drink something called bladder wine. 

I will note that If you get the smaller packaging of boxed wine, it actually is in a box, but we are focusing on the bladder version.

Now, this is probably going to surprise you, but can you guess where boxed wine was born? 

It was actually in Australia of all places. I would have never guessed that. An Australian man named Thomas Angove is credited with inventing the process, sometimes known as cask wine, and in 1964 his company was awarded a patent.

Today, boxed wine is pretty convenient, but when it was first sold, customers actually had to cut the corner of the plastic bladder the wine came in and then reseal it every time - which was a pain in the butt and consumers didn’t like it, so in 1967 an Australian inventor named Charles Malpas who worked at the famous Penfolds winery in Australia created a plastic, air-tight tap that was attached to the bladder. And this design was key because it helped to keep the wine fresh much longer. And that is basically the same design to this day.

Boxed wine didn’t really hit the US until the 1980s, and it did hit, it was mostly low end wine brands like Franzia that were most involved in producing and selling their product in boxes, which is why the wine had and still has in a lot of cases a bad reputation. They were pumping out volume, not quality. 

It was really Black Box and Bota Box wines that started to shift the perception of boxed wines when they came out in 2003, and since that time more and more premium brands have started producing boxed wines.  Most wine snobs are still not going to look very kindly on boxed wine today, but maybe we can help change that perception - what do you say friends? Could we be the ones who tip the scales? 

If you are curious, and we have lots of links in our show notes if you want to learn more, today the bladders are made with polyethylene, which is considered safe, non-toxic, sturdy, and neutral - meaning that it does not impact the taste of the wine. Then, the bladder is often placed in an outer bag made from a similar plastic laminate that protects it a bit more. Most winemakers use BPA-free plastic, if you are curious. 

The second thing to dig into is why are boxed wines popular, and there are really four key reasons why. 

  1. The first reason is, again, for obvious reasons, cost. The most popular size for boxed wine is 3 liters which is equivalent to four bottles of wine, or about 20 standard 5 ounce pours. So, that’s a lot. If you are finding these at around $20 per box, you are getting the equivalent of a bottle of wine for $5. On average, the cost savings is about 50% over bottle wine. Not bad. 
  2. Just note that some of the higher end boxed wines sell for much more, and some are in the $60-$100 per box range. So, they are not always just inexpensive wines. 
  3. The second is that Boxed wine can last a lot longer than a bottle of wine after it is opened. While boxed wines are not meant to be aged - in other words, you don’t need to store them in your cellar - once opened, they can last for about 4 weeks, although some experts say to drink within 3 weeks for the best flavor. But still - you need to consume a bottle of wine in 2-3 days if you store it in the fridge after opening, so this is a much better way to manage costs especially if you just want a glass or two of wine. And, they stay fresh because, as the wine is poured out, the bag collapses, keeping out oxygen. And, by the way, you should store your boxed wine in the fridge, even red wine. It will last longer. Just pour your red wine into a glass and let it sit and warm up.
  4. Boxed wines are also convenient and durable. No bottles to lug around or break, and the square size is easy to manage in the store and at home. Plus, the pour spout just makes things easy.
  5. And, people also like boxed wine because it is perceived to be better for the environment. Although it uses plastic, the packaging is lighter and takes up less space than glass bottles, which lowers its impact when shipped. Also, the cardboard boxes and bags they are made from are more sustainable than glass to produce, and many producers are starting to make the bags with recyclable plastics. 
  6. I am sure there are other reasons that people have for appreciating boxed wines, but we can say that they are improving in all ways, and have some advantages over wine in a bottle. The one drawback, and this is true of screw cap wines as well, is that wines that need to be aged are not really suitable for this kind of packaging. So, think about white and rosé wines as great options, and lighter red wines. 

So, on that note, I think it’s time to learn a little more about the specific wines we are drinking today. Whaddya say?


Boxed Wines We Chose for This Episode 21:13

As usual, the wines we have chosen for this episode are under $25, and, because these are boxed wines, the per bottle costs are closer to $5, and they should be pretty easy to find because I bought them both at QFC which is our local Kroger. Basically, any place you buy shitty wine, you should be able to find them! 

Again,  we specifically chose these boxed wines for this episode because they have decent reputations and because they are easy to find, especially Bota Box.

So, let’s start with the Bota Box Pinot Grigio. I don’t have a ton of information about this wine, but I can tell you that Bota Box is located in California, and that is where the grapes are sourced, but I can’t tell you anything more about the grapes themselves other than they are Pinot Grigio. 

Bota talks a lot about their carbon footprint, and they say this:  The boxes are 100% recyclable with packaging that produces 96% less landfill waste and has a lower carbon footprint when compared to glass bottles; Boxes block out light and air to keep wine fresh for up to one month after opening

I will also say that I chose a Pinot Grigio because it should be a wine that is reasonably hard to eff-up. If there is a wine that should be easy drinking and great for a party, Pinot Grigio is that wine. It is, at the very least, usually never offensive.

So, let’s move over The Chicken Wine, also known as La Vieille Ferme Red Wine or Vin Rouge. Again, not a ton I can tell you about this wine, although my understanding is that it should be the same wine as what they put in the bottle. 

The wine is made by winery Famille Perrin, and over the course of time they have changed the specifics about where the grapes are from - now just indicating France when in the past they actually noted the vineyard. The winery is in the Rhône Valley, and so, as expected, the wine is more or less a GSM blend, though it looks like there is no Mourvedre, and while they don’t give the percentages, the wine is reported to be a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and Cinsault. 

But, honestly, that is kind of it. You want to know a lot about your wine, I guess you probably shouldn't seek out wine in a box. And, look, the goal here, at least in this episode, is not to find a wine that is going to knock our socks off. At this price point, and it will be different if we decide to try one of the premium boxed wines, we are looking to see if the wine is drinkable, and maybe if it is good enough to serve at a party. 

So, on that note - let’s get to drinking! We’ll take a quick break and be right back. And, if you have these wines or similar wines, drink along with us to get some participation points, which you can trade-in for free stickers. You just need to send me an email with your mailing address, and I will get those “I drink with The Wine Pair Podcast” stickers over to you!



LINKS TO SOURCES FOR THESE SPECIFIC WINES




Bota Box Pinot Grigio, La Vieille Ferme Red Wine Vin Rouge Wine Tasting, Pairing, and Review 25:35

Wine: Bota Box Pinot Grigio
Region: California
Year: NV 
Price: $18.99 (equivalent to $4.75 per bottle)
Retailer: QFC (Kroger)
Alcohol: 12%
Grapes: Pinot Grigio
Professional Rating: Vivino 3.3

What we tasted and smelled in this Bota Box Pinot Grigio:

  • Color: Very light, straw, like lemonade
  • On the nose: Apple, sweet bread, pear, lemon, kerosene, airplane glue, pleasant
  • In the mouth: Juicy, citrus pith bitter on the end, lemon, orange rind


Food to pair with this Bota Box Pinot Grigio: Great party wine, versatile, picnic, chips, cheeseboard, chicken sandwich, potato salad
 
As a reminder on our rating scale, we rate on a scale of 1-10, with no half points, where 7 and above means that we would buy it, and 4 and below means that we are likely to pour it down the sink, and a 5 or 6 means we are likely to drink it and finish it, but we are probably not going to buy it. 

Bota Box Pinot Grigio Wine Rating: 

  • Joe: 7/10
  • Carmela: 7/10


Wine: La Vieille Ferme Red Wine
Region: France, Rhône
Year: NV
Price: $22.99 (equivalent to $5.75 per bottle)
Retailer: QFC
Alcohol: 13%
Grapes: Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and Cinsault
Professional Rating: Vivino

What we tasted and smelled in this La Vieille Ferme Red Wine:

  • Color: Very dark, opaque, purple rim, some shimmer in the bottle of the glass. Looks like grape juice
  • On the nose: Incense, sandalwood, leather, plum, grape. Spice, pepper, black licorice
  • In the mouth: Juicy, sweet, grape juice, a lot of tannin, some bitterness near the end, a bit thin. Easy drinking, you can gulp it.  


Food to pair with this La Vieille Ferme Red Wine: A big party, cookout wine. Barbecue. Grilled food. Cheeseburger. Shish kabob. Summertime backyard wine.

La Vieille Ferme Red Wine Wine Rating: 

  • Joe: 5/10
  • Carmela: 7/10



Which one of these are you finishing tonight?

  • Carmela: Bota Box Pinot Grigio
  • Joe: Bota Box Pinot Grigio



Taste profiles expected from Pinot Grigio and Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and Cinsault red wine blend  40:22

  • General Pinot Grigio:
    • Lemon, lime, green apple, pear, peach, melon, salt water, wet stone, high acidity and light body
  • General Grenache, Syrah, Carignan and Cinsault red wine blend:
    • A mix of red and dark fruits like raspberry, cherry, blackberry, and plum, floral or herbal elements, spice, pepper, earthiness. Medium bodied, medium high acidity, medium tannins
    • Texture & Mouthfeel: Medium to full-bodied, with moderate tannins and acidity providing a rounded, structured mouthfeel. The blend will feel smoother than a 100% Syrah or Carignan wine due to the influence of Grenache and Cinsault.
  • Bota Box Pinot Grigio
    • Winery: Fresh and fruity and delivers juicy, medium-bodied flavors of white peaches and citrus, with a clean, refreshing finish laced with pineapple and floral notes. Serve chilled.
  • La Vieille Ferme Red Wine
    • Winery: The nose reveals a seductive bouquet of red fruit and spices. Full of delicacy, the palate is full of freshness and well balanced, with aromas of cherries and very soft tannins, giving this wine great drinkability.
    • RWS (2021) - aromas of cherry, red fruit and a little spice. The wine tastes simple and good. It features fresh, juicy and fleshy fruit similar to the nose, good balance and a soft and smooth mouthfeel. Ends with a dry, satisfying, medium-long finish.


Outro and how to find The Wine Pair Podcast 42:48

Ok, so, Carmela, it’s time for us to go, but before we do, we want to thank you very much for listening to us - and if you haven’t done so yet, now would be the perfect time to follow or subscribe to our podcast and also a fantastic time to leave us a nice rating and review on our website or Apple podcasts or other podcast app - and it is an awesome and free way to support us and help us grow listeners.

We would also love to hear from you about a wine you would like us to taste and review. You can leave a message for us on our website thewinepairpodcast.com and you can join our email newsletter there - and if you missed our latest newsletter, email me and I will send it to you. You can do that by reaching out at joe@thewinepairpodcast.com. And tell us some things you want to hear us do, or not hear us do!

Alright, with that, we are going to sign off, so thanks again, and we will see you next time. And, as we say, life is short, so stop drinking shitty wine.


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