A fine Merlot, perhaps a tangy Shiraz, maybe a nice Cabernet… grab your baguettes and cheese, it’s time for a wine tasting! Only this time, in the name of green living (and drinking), we’re ditching the bottle and grabbing the wine in a box. Or, more accurately, the wine in a bag-in-a-box. While boxed wine may conjure up images of campgrounds and “parents out of town for the weekend” ragers, its bulk size, long shelf life, and reduced shipping weight are good news for the environment.

What’s wrong with the bottle?

While organic and lower-sulfite options are fantastic for tributes of Bacchus, what your wine comes in may be more important than what is in your wine—environmentally speaking, at least. Glass wine bottles may be recyclable, but they require a lot of energy to produce (10.8 thousand Btus (pdf)), and recycling is notorious for its huge water cost. And then there’s the weight. When full, approximately 41% of wine’s weight comes from its bottle. All that weight takes a lot of fuel to ship, and due to their shape, bottles don’t exactly pack together tightly.

Other options: bag-in-a-box and Tetra Pak

But wait, before you hang up your stemware, there are some non-glass options: the bag-in-a-box and the Tetra Pak. By offering lighter, less resource intensive packaging, both of these options cut down on shipping costs and the carbon footprint of wine distributors. Better Wines Better World, a distributor of bag-in-a-box wine, offers this shocking statistic:

“If every wine sold in the US came in a box instead of a bottle, it would be the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road per year, according to their calculations.” (from Asbell at Suite 101, “Wine’s Environmental Impact”)

However, both bag-in-a-box and Tetra Pak have their own controversies. While it’s easy to recycle the box, the bag may be a bit harder (your local recycler has to accept that specific type of plastic—the controversial #7). And Tetra Paks—the adult juice box—may be difficult to recycle within the US.

So, like most environmental issues, which wine is the greenest isn’t always clear. Nonetheless, we decided that bag-in-a-box is a decently green option. So, like we do here at IzzitGreen, it’s time to find out if wine in a box can be good and green.

Notes on finding the wine

Depending on where you live, finding a good, green box wine could be easier said than done. I found the first box at Wine Press, a pricey yet reliable liquor store in Brookline. After that, I headed deeper into Brookline to Trader Joe’s in Coolidge Corner. Surely, such an enlightened neighborhood (with an eco-friendly pet store and a pizza place that delivers by bicycle) would be hip to the environmentally conscious wine in a box trend. They weren’t. Although they had organic and no-sulfites-added wine at TJ’s, they weren’t ready to embrace the wine in a box trend.

Heading up Harvard Street towards Allston, a neighborhood sensitive to the needs of the college student, the young professional, and the sidewalk drinker, my luck predictably changed. Allston’s two best institutions of inebriation, Marty’s and Blanchard, had extensive selections of wine in a box. They had so many options that I had to be choosy—after all, I could only carry so much back on my bicycle.

As a side note, one benefit of wine-in-a-bag-in-a-box is that I was able to jaunt around Boston by bike with 9L of wine on my back (so now it was wine in a bag in a box in a backpack on a bike…just sayin’). There’s no way I would have been able to transport the equivalent amount of wine (12 bottles!) without a car—or at least a trailer on my bike. Huzzah!

I found no Tetra Pak wines at any of those stores, and several calls to liquor stores in Newton proved equally as fruitless. However, Newton Highlands Wine and Spirits carried one Tetra Pak wine. So some of the Tetra Pak wines marketed as environmentally friendly, like French Rabbit and Yellow + Blue, were absent from our tasting.

A blind taste test

We set the IzzitGreen table with glasses, bread, four different bag-in-a-box wines, one Tetra Pak wine, and an organic wine in a bottle (for good measure) and got ready for a blind tasting. Seven tasters, each with distinct palates, participated.

We used all red wines because not-chilling is inherently greener. Also, wine boxes are made for travel, often to places where there is no readily available refrigeration.

Bota Box – Cabernet Sauvignon – California – 2006 – 3L for $17.99 (bag-in-a-box)

Average Score: 1.5/5

The tasters unanimously agreed that a better name for this lowest scoring wine would have been “The Botox Box.” Paralyzed post-injection muscles would keep your face from scrunching up as you sip.

Marketed as the perfect drink for canoeing or camping, "anytime, anyplace" Bota’s box was made from post-consumer recycled paper. Were those good intentions enough to make up for its flavor, which was “medicinal and flat,” “frothy and bitter, like bark,” and “like a stuffy old sweater”? Maybe. As “the Natty Lite of boxed wine—and I mean that in a good way,” some tasters felt they could drink this wine while washing the car or eating mashed potatoes.

From the Tank – Vin Rouge/Cotes du Rhone – France – NV – 3L for $39.99 (bag-in-a-box)

Average Score: 1.6/5

This wine, with a bare-bones box and a minimalist name, had the honor of being the second worst and the most disappointing. The owner of Wine Press recommended this wine, which was alarmingly expensive for a box, though at the equivalent of $9.99 a bottle, still cheap in the grand scheme of wine. He said, “I didn’t want to like it, I really didn’t, but I just couldn’t help it this wine is so good!”

Unfortunately, our tasters didn’t share his sentiments. With the word “alcohol” showing up on every tasting card, this wine was five parts disinfectant and no parts fine table red. Tasters said, “this would typically be consumed in a paper bag,” “this makes my tongue and lips numb,” “appalling, wicked frigging bad,” and simply “ick!” [Author's Note: Some tasters are still convinced that we got a "dud" box, or the flavor was ruined by the high ambient temperature in our "tasting room"/office]

Fish Eye – Shiraz – California – 2005 – 3L for $15.99 (bag-in-a-box)

Average Score: 2.6/5

This wine landed itself solidly in the middle of the pack with mediocre scores, although two tasters choose this straightforward Shiraz as their favorite. Though the box touted the wine’s ability to make the drinker feel like “diving into a fish eye,” the citrus and berry flavors that burned the throat reminded most people of high school, camping, winter cabins, and Tylenol. One taster remarked that this wine “would go well with pancakes.” [Author's Note: This wine also received the award for "most annoyingly over the top copy writing on the box"]

Pinot Evil – Pinot Noir – France – NV – 3L for $19.99 (bag-in-a-box)

Average Score: 3.1/5

On the box, this punny wine is described as a “guilty pleasure.” Perhaps that was referring to the bitter bite it had at the end, which sent the mouth into just enough of a pucker to leave the taster wanting more. Some were unimpressed, and thought this wine was “fruity and bad, nothing to it,” But most tasters liked this sinful mouth-drying feature, commenting on its “soft flavor,” “good spiciness,” “like sucking on a lemon, but nice.” [Author’s note: This is the wine I took home at the end of the day.]

Thirsty Lizard – Shiraz – Australia – 2005 – 1L for $8.99 (Tetra Pak)

Average Score: 3.2/5

Thirsty Lizard was the darling of the bunch, claiming the non-bottle crown. Tasters enjoyed its fruity, berry, flowery, spice, that “actually tastes like wine.” This wine was the most complex; one taster thought it started with a “sour cherry flavor, then became savory, like a sausage,” while another tasted hints of tobacco.

This $8.99 1L Tetra Pak was the equivalent of $6.75 for a 750mL bottle, so for a portable, resealable, corkscrew free experience, it’s a great choice.

Loloniz – Zinfandel – California 2005 – 750 mL for $22.00 (bottle)

Average Score: 3.3

We threw this bottle into the mix as a control (and because we were dying to try out this highly recommended organic wine). Almost every taster enjoyed this earthy wine, which had flavors of smoke, chocolate, and coffee. Unlike its boxed competitors, it was evident that this wine was crafted, and care was taken to create unique drinking experience.

While Loloniz thoroughly trounced Bota Box, From the Tank, and Fish Eye, it only narrowly edged out Pinot Evil and Thirsty Lizard to win the title. Does this mean that there’s hope for wine in a box?

The final sip

There’s no question that boxed wine is economical. It’s also a win for the environment. But…is it good for your tongue? IzzitGreen recommends that you at least take a look at the box wine section in your local liquor store (and, as we learned, the size of that section depends on the demographics of your neighborhood). There are plenty of boxes on the shelf, and you just may be surprised by what you find. (I even came across an organic white, but refrained from using it for this red wine competition.)

While you may not find the wine that you’d want to serve at your wedding, and it may still be a few years before you’ll be able to ask for a nice box of Chardonnay at a green restaurant, you just might find the perfect wine for summer barbeques and winter ski trips. And don’t forget to toast to the environment as you open the tap.

Wine in a box Pros: value, size, portability, ease of recyclability, ease of preservation (lasts up to 4 weeks!), no need for an opener

Wine in a box Cons: can only buy in bulk, limited selection, strange looks people give you when you ask for it at the store

Find out More:

• Hitting the Bottle or Hitting the Box? The Debate Continues (TreeHugger)
• Boxing in Green Wine (Ecopreneurist)
• The Boxed Wine Spot Blog
• How Green is Wine in a Box? (Packaging Digest)
• What Sound Does a Party Animal Make? (Ideal Bite)
• Wine’s Environmental Impact (Suite 101)

By Jordan Wirfs-Brock

Also in Izzit's Lab

• The Corn/Cooking/Gluten Free Diet
• Adventures in Composting
• What Kind of BAG are You?
• What Type of Driver are You? The Top Five
• What Type of Driver are You? The Bottom Five

Image from Flickr user rick shared with a Creative Commons Attribution License.