Why Bag-in-box Wines Are Here To Stay | Hannah Crosbie On Drinks

Slap nan bag? The instrumentality of goon? Or, perhaps, goon of fortune? If immoderate of those collections of words mean thing to you (keep your double entendres to yourself, please), you whitethorn person fuzzy yet achy memories of bag-in-box wine. The cheapness and nan format – not to mention nan sheer measurement you tin bargain it for – makes bag-in-box ripe for drinking games.

These fond (?) memories mightiness consequence successful an presumption that each bag-in-box vino is of a lesser quality, thing designed for inexpensive and speedy intoxication, alternatively than tasteful enjoyment. But liking successful bag-in-box is connected nan rise, pinch nan UK marketplace expected to rise to much than £300m by 2030 – almost double what it was successful 2021.

Why nan spike successful interest? My champion conjecture is that group are drinking little and, erstwhile opened, your mean bag-in-box will enactment caller for astir six full weeks. Many of america are (or person precocious become) nan type of drinker who savours a azygous solid of vino each truthful often aft work, but ne'er portion capable successful nan week to decorativeness an full bottle, truthful nan remainder is often fixed arsenic a small dainty to nan sink.

The sorts of wines you’re apt to find successful bags are what you’d expect: bright, fresh, comparatively elemental worldly that’s designed to beryllium drunk wrong weeks, not years. And though a boxed vino will past longer erstwhile it’s unfastened than vino successful a bottle, nan integrative utilized successful accumulation is permeable, meaning nan vino will gradually spoil owed to interaction pinch oxygen, moreover if it remains unopened.

It’s smart buying decisions that find what wines make it into my bags. My pal Freddy Bulmer is simply a purchaser astatine the Wine Society, a spot pinch a bag-in-box offering that impresses maine pinch each and each caller addition, truthful I asked him why they’re putting truthful overmuch banal successful nan category. “One point that we really attraction astir successful nan vino manufacture is nan sustainability angle. Bag-in-box tin beryllium a solution to a batch of those manufacture concerns. For example, shipping complete a huge, 24,000-litre flexitank afloat of vino that tin past beryllium put into bags successful nan UK is acold much sustainable than sending thousands of individual solid bottles astir nan world.”

Large retailers specified arsenic nan Wine Society and our awesome supermarkets person embraced nan format to meet nan needs of nan modern drinker, but location are immoderate brands that person been founded connected trading solely bag-in-box, which if thing other is an look of assurance successful nan early of nan category. One specified business is Bobo Wines, which sells beautifully designed, handwritten boxes (I’m a sucker for a bully spot of packaging design) that look arsenic if they’ve been plucked consecutive retired of nan cellar by Bobo’s buyer, nan sommelier, writer and pedagogue Amber Gardner. My friends, orangish vino successful a container is now officially A Thing. Whatever next?

For bag-in-box wines that are good worthy your time

The Society’s achromatic burgundy 2024 £34 (2¼ litres) The Wine Society, 12.5%. Great for easy entertaining, and everything you want from a elemental achromatic burgundy: agleam and brimming pinch apples.

La Vieille Ferme rosé £15.75 (1½ litre) Morrisons, 12.5%. The internet’s favourite vino comes successful a container now. Crowdpleasing rosé from Famille Perrin.

Famille Fabre Corbières orangish 2024 £49 (2¼ litres) Bobo Wines, 13%. Aromatic, savoury, orangish … and 3 bottles of nan stuff.

Waitrose Blueprint Romanian pinot noir £14 (1½ litre) Waitrose, 12.5%. Two bottles-worth of fresh, fruity pinot noir from an under-rated winemaking country.