3 Tips Beyond The Bottle So You Can Embrace Alternative Wine Packaging

Cringe at the sight of boxed wine at a party? Think twice. Episode 41 of Everyday Sommelier breaks down everything you know—and don’t—about alternative wine packaging. Host Kristi Mayfield pulls back the curtain on why glass bottles aren’t the only (or best) way to store and enjoy your favorite wines.

Explore the facts behind boxed wine, canned wine, Tetra Pak, paper bottles, lightweight glass, and even reusable bottle programs. Dive into the science of why these formats preserve wine—sometimes even better than glass—and how they offer fresher sips, wallet-friendly options, and sustainable solutions for eco-conscious wine lovers.

Get the truth about quality—why great wine can indeed come in a box, can, or carton—and get actionable tips for choosing, serving, and savoring alternative packaging. Ready to ditch the snobbery, reduce your carbon footprint, and discover your next favorite glass? This episode is your shortcut to confident, modern wine drinking, wherever and however you pour it.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL DISCOVER: 

• The science and history behind alternative wine packaging and why glass isn’t always best
• How boxed, canned, and Tetra Pak wines stack up in quality, freshness, convenience, and sustainability
• Practical tips for choosing and enjoying alternative packaging—without sacrificing taste or experience
• Proven ways to break past outdated wine “rules” and confidently explore under-the-radar gems

TIMESTAMPS:

00:01:28 – Rethinking Wine Packaging: From Ancient Amphora to Modern Box
(Problem: Wine tradition vs. innovation—why change your mind on packaging?)

00:04:43 – Hidden Costs of Glass Bottles in the Wine Industry
(Results: Learn the environmental and financial impact few talk about)

00:07:22 – Wine Packaging Innovations: Lightweight, Flat, and Reusable Bottles
(Results: How packaging is becoming eco-friendly and convenient)

00:09:15 – Boxed and Bag-in-Box Wine: Freshness, Longevity, and Value
(Results: Why quality boxed wine may outlast your bottle colle

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We're also announcing the launch of Sip Society Collective where high-impact women can 10X their Social Power Skills through wine. https://sipsocietycollective.com.

Cheers to many more years! Kristi

It's been such a pleasure sharing wine with you this past year! We also want to let you know our INSTAGRAM handle has changed to @kristi_sipsocietycollective - if you are already following, you're good to go. If you haven't followed us yet, now is the time!

Cheers to one year, our launch of Sip Society Collective (https://sipsocietycollective.com) and to learning wine your way! Kristi

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Transcript

Kristi Mayfield (00:00)
It's Friday night and you're invited to a friend's big birthday bash. You just know the wines are going to be amazing as always. So you roll in donning your sparkly new cocktail dress or your best sports jacket looking like a million bucks, just like everyone else in the room. You stroll to the bar and you ask what delicious white wine your host has chosen for specifically this celebration. Then you see it. You're in shock.

your jaw drops and you start stammering your words. The host with the most is serving what? A boxed wine? way. This cannot be happening. But stick with me here. The days of cheap and probably cheerful, barely consumable boxed, canned or otherwise alternatively packaged wines are gone for good.

They're truly a thing of the past. And now we have all kinds of new and innovative wine packaging alternatives that are popping up on shelves across the globe. And some of them have been around so long, it's second nature for some cultures, while we in the US still feel it's kind of taboo, likely in other cultures as well. This is the first of a two-part series. And in this episode, I'm going to focus on you.

the consumer side choices that you are seeing on shelves from grocery stores, liquor shops and wine shops everywhere. And in my next episode, we're going to look inside how restaurants and bars are taking on to the alternative packaging trend.

I get it, you're not quite sure if you can buy into it yet, but let's dive in and get you the science, the benefits, and the focus on alternative wine packaging that you might just need to walk away from this episode with a completely different perspective.

Throughout my corporate career, I would spend weeks, if not months abroad. So I became a regular frequent flyer shopper to local grocery stores and markets to avoid having to eat every single meal out at a restaurant. Well, not only did this give me great exposure to local cuisine, if I could get a hotel where I could cook it in my room, not only did this give me great exposure to local cuisine, but some of the best

local wines that never leave the country's border. Yes, most countries will keep a lot of that good juice to themselves. And one of the biggest eye-openers was shopping for wine and seeing how many great local table wines were actually bottled in bottles. They came in gallon jugs, liter bottles, just like orange juice, milk, even soda.

And candidly, my first reaction was, yeah, not on my watch. But over time, I realized what a gift these wines were. And often they were some of my favorite local wines because I got to try new varietals or new blends that I might not have actually purchased seeing them in a bottle on the shelf on the next aisle over. So let's dive in and let's get past this perception. The wine world has subconsciously

brainwashed us with. And that is thinking that good wine must come in a bottle. Yes, there is something magical about popping that cork and pouring a glass. It isn't beautiful. But let's go back centuries. mean, historically, wine was stored in clay amphora, wooden barrels, because glass wasn't readily available or because it was so easy to break. And

I mean, let's go back a couple of centuries here. Historically, wine was stored in clay amphora or wooden barrels prior to the real industrialization of glass. There was a tremendous amount of breakage, a lot of leaks, and these were not necessarily ideal ways to store wine. But along came the advent furnaces, and that launched the glass industry as we know it today.

providing strong, protective, easy, transportable, inert vessels for wine that transfer absolutely no flavors and aromas. They're easy to sterilize, so they minimize spoilage from bacterias and fungus. And glass became the status quo when it comes to the wine industry. However, this also comes with high cost. One, glass is heavy, so it's a high cost for transporting it. Two, the production of glass is a high

carbon emission industry. And then after you drink that bottle, whether you throw it in your landfill and your recycling bin it's expensive or it just builds up in the environment. Now I'm not bashing glass bottles whatsoever. I mean, my goal is to encourage you to give other alternative packaging concepts a fair shake. Here's a few of the reasons why I encourage you to do so. One, they are super convenient. Unlike glass.

cans, bags in a box. They're super convenient for on-the-go consumption. They're often way cheaper, not only to produce, but also they're more cost effective from a production as well as consumption perspective. And we'll get into some elements of that here in a moment. You can take them absolutely anywhere, especially great for outdoor activities.

like picnics or lakeside meals or just sitting around the pool on a Saturday afternoon

And just like bottles, they truly do preserve the wine and minimize oxidation, especially when we're talking about bags in a box and bladders.

And here's a fun fact. Did you know that many of the wines that we import here into the US are actually transported in manners very similar to that refrigerated milk truck we see on our streets and highways? Big bulk refrigerated tanks full of amazing wines are loaded onto ships and cross oceans and aren't even bottled until they reach the final destination.

This saves tremendously on transportation costs as well as emissions. And you would never even know it unless you did your research. So what are some of the popular trends in alternative packaging today? So bottles themselves, we are seeing and will continue to see more bottle shaped alternative packaging styles. And first and foremost, lighter weight glass bottles.

Personally, I'm shocked when I pick up some bottles of wine and still see these massively heavy thick bottles. Knowing the cost of transporting them is immense and just knowing the material in them alone is adding significant cost to the bottle that I'm drinking. We are seeing more and more lightweight glass bottles or even bottles that are shaped in a more flat design so they're easier to store and easier to transport.

Think about the shape of a bottle of wine and how much empty space is in that case or that box when you get to it. These flat bottles can fill that space and make for more efficient transportation schemes. We see reusable bottles, similar that we're seeing wineries introducing reusable bottles. You take that bottle home, bring it back to the winery, they will disinfect it and reuse it again.

keeping those bottles out of our landfills or out of the expensive recycling processes. Biodegradable labels are eco-friendly ways of just simply making the label itself able to be recycled. We see a lot of alternative plastics being used. They are super resistant to breakage. They're obviously way lighter than glass. The shipping costs are tremendously lower. And again, perfect for popping the cork.

or unscrewing the lid for your camping adventures, picnics, beach outings, poolside sipping, and they do mimic the shape and feel of a classic glass wine bottle. They're convenient and practical.

And finally, we're seeing bottles made out of paper and other plant-based materials, which is a super novel and highly sustainable packaging material for wine. These are gaining traction simply because they are easily recyclable. They are lighter, lower carbon emissions again. And because they are lined, the taste of the wine in that bottle is

100 % unaffected by the packaging. Now shifting away from things that look like a traditional bottle, let's go to our bag in a box. Now we've all had those bag in a box wines that I mentioned earlier, cheap and cheerful, but definitely not the quality you're likely looking for. But more and more wineries are seeing this as a tremendous

growth opportunity because these wines because these formats allow you to have a tremendously longer shelf life after opening a bag in a box of wine versus a bottle. The bag in a box protects the wine from oxidizing. It retains the wine's freshness dramatically longer than

most other packaging options. It's lighter. You can toss that in the back of your car and not worry about it rolling around and getting broken. If you're driving in Texas, that is, and it is a beautiful option. If you want a half a glass or want to drink some tonight and not again for another three or four nights, unlike that 750 milliliter bottle that will go bad before you finished it bag in a box.

preserves the wine for you so you can drink it at your tempo and when you want. The quality perception is still there though. I get it. This is a downside and you along with other consumers likely feel that bag in a box wines are inferior despite the fact that the package has absolutely zero impact or influence on the flavor of the wine inside of it. Now canned wines,

Again, lightweight, portable, recyclable. We are seeing more and more brands launching canned wines on the market. And for those of you who are younger consumers out there, this is a trend you can definitely buy into because you get to purchase a smaller amount of wine. And if it's a style or a variety that you've never tried before,

you don't spend the 20 plus dollars on a bottle of wine, you don't enjoy it and you end up it ends up rotting on your countertop or in your wine refrigerator and you find it a couple of months later and pour it down the sink, there is zero risk to a canned wine. This portion sizes are ideally suited for exploration. Now, once again, there are definitely quality perceptions and I will tell you

I would not necessarily be one to pop the tab on a can of wine and drink it straight from the can or with a straw. I am going to be still pouring that canned wine into a glass, but I love the fact that it is a sustainable product and the size of that can is ideally suited for me to have that single glass, glass and a half or share it with a friend. Now the last

packaging concept I want to talk about is Tetra Pak. So think of these as that papery coated half gallon of milk or quart of heavy cream or four cup box of chicken broth, lightweight recyclable cartons that are made from paper and plastic, sometimes even aluminum. They are unbreakable. They stack easy for transportation. And again, they do not influence the flavor of your wine.

whatsoever. So what should you do when you think about alternative packaging and your mind goes immediately to cheap wines low quality? So let's start thinking about the positive attributes of these non-traditional forms of wine packaging. One, they definitely have a benefit of preserving the integrity of the wine, often a lot longer than a traditional

bottle will do. They're convenient. You can take them anywhere. You can pack them any any time without fear of breaking, especially if you're talking about red wines. I mean, have you ever had a bottle of red wine break like in a suitcase and destroy every single article of clothing in it? And by nature, this type of packaging has integrated functional compounds that prevent enzymes

bacterias, fungus, all of those things that can destroy the wine from growing and infesting that wine. So you're very likely to get a higher quality product without potentially the faults that could come from a traditional bottle and cork scenario. You're not going to have oxygen at

And another element that is kind of hidden from you as a consumer is the fact that traceability is embedded into most of these alternative packaging formats. And here's what I mean by that. We have seen over the past decade or two, tremendous articles and features about significant wine fraud, where somebody is faking a wine

creating an inferior wine and packaging it and selling it to you as a consumer as though it is a $200, $300, $500 bottle of wine. Unfortunately, wine fraud has become a common headline, but I seriously doubt there are many criminals who are focusing on fraudulently presenting you wine in the alternative packaging space.

Now, while glass is going to remain the primary material we're going to see in the wine industry, currently about 70 % of the wines on the market are in glass. We will see plastic and paper packaging and other eco-friendly packaging materials on the rise. The trends are indicating that we're going to see 10 to 20 % percent increases in these packaging styles year over year.

And the demand for these being more innovative and aesthetically pleasing is driving us to see way more packages that still mimic the shape of a traditional glass bottle. So here are my three tips for you to shift past your bottle-only perception and explore alternative packaging. Find a resource that you trust

for recommendations. Every year, publications like Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Food and Wine put out their top lists of alternative packaged wines, boxed wines, canned wines, other alternatives. They have teams of wine experts who taste thousands of wines every year. So these people know what they're looking for. They know what they're doing.

and they are giving you a list of what they feel are the best of class. You can find them either in online articles or by subscribing to the magazines themselves. Number two, leverage alternative packaging when it counts or makes the most sense. Cans for poolside picnics or all fresco dining and definitely don't feel, as I mentioned, like you have to drink it out of that can just as you would

pop the tab on a bag in a box and pour it into a glass, do the same with your can. So.

but also consider using an acrylic or thermal glass rather than a glass glass if you're in one of those scenarios in order not to have that outside breakage.

Third, shift your mindset and think of alternatively packaged wines as your ticket to explore and experiment with new varietals, new regions, new styles, or to simply allow you the luxury of sipping on a boxed wine over a few days to a few weeks rather than ending up dumping half that bottle down the drain because it went bad before you were ready to visit again and pour yourself another glass.

Alternative packaging opens up a whole new world when you open your mind to the possibilities. And while it's not designed for long live lines that actually will get better over three, five, 20, 30 years. And remember only three to 5 % of all wines in the world will actually improve with age. So start exploring and leverage the latest and greatest in packaging technology.

like the explorers who transitioned from clay amphora to glass bottles all those years ago.

So now that you are ready to dive in and find your next favorite wine in a can, who do you plan to ex- who do you plan to share that experience with? Whoever that is would love to learn more about alternative packaging ideas, as well as all the other topics that we unpack here on every episode of Everyday Sommelier. So don't keep the good stuff to yourself. Share this episode with a friend and invite them to follow the podcast along with you.

And if you're ready to take that next step, head on over to my website and in and join my insiders list. I'll send weekly if that emails to share wine tips, event updates, and new releases at wine dash wise w I Z E dot com. And just for signing up, you're going to receive an email with my wine tasting guide. And as I shared early on the show,

In our next episode, we are taking a look at alternative packaging from a different angle, that of restaurants, wine bars, and cocktail lounges, to understand why and how this trend is changing the game for them as well. So until then, grab your favorite glass while learning wine your way.