Wine blogging Wednesday #31

Box wines is hosting WBW #31. The suggested theme being wine in alternate (non bottle) packaging.

The most common alternative to bottles is the bag in a box / cask of wine. These are widely available. Despite the ease of doing so, I could not bring myself to buying a two, three or four litre box of wine. It seemed like a huge waste (regardless of the fairly minimal cost), buying so much wine with the sole intention of taking just one sip.

I chose instead - wine in a can! The packaging, if not the combination, will be familiar to all.

Having tried two different cans of wine, I think the concept is a good one, though as I've previously mentioned I have a fondness for small individual packages of wine.

Before getting onto the tasting notes, here is a summary of some of my own thoughts on the idea of canned wines:

Is the wine altered? Probably not. Will wine keep? Perhaps, though no better than wine in a bottle with a perfect seal. Will better recognised producers embrace the idea? No. They won't use such an overtly different concept, which is not yet accepted by their traditional customers. Will traditional wine drinkers make the switch? No, and certainly not before screwcaps are universally accepted.


Barokes Bin 241 Chardonnay Semillon NV.
SE Australia. 13% alcohol. $A4.95 for 250mls.

Pale yellow. Clean and fruit driven. Grass, lemon, lanolin and wax nose. Sweet and approachable in the mouth. Certainly not awful, and actually quite good. Initially short, but with air time improves and become marginally longer and a little more gracious in the mouth.

The unfair would call this dilute pineapple juice, to me it has a certain easy appeal, though I would not go out of my way to buy more.

Fair.
83/100.
Drink now.

Barokes 'Bubbly wine' Bin 171 Cabernet Shiraz Merlot NV.
SE Australia. 13% alcohol. $A4.95 for 250mls.

Medium red. An initial flurry of bubbles which soon fades, suggesting to me, at least, that these are carbonated bubbles. They distract and I am pleased when they are no more. The wine is better without them. Like the white wine above I found this better with time - it is correct, clean and certainly better than a poke in the eye. The nose has a mix of pencil shavings, dried herbs and spice. There is sweetness, though not particularly excessive, and quite well handled tannins.

Fair.
82/100 (especially if you wait for the bubbles to fade).
Drink now.

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