Box Wine - Pros and Cons

Pros and Cons

Bag-in-box packaging has some advantages over bottles and is preferred by some wineries because it is far less expensive, lighter and more environmentally friendly than bottled wine and far easier to handle and transport. Boxed wine is typically cheaper than bottled varieties, often around A$15 (GBP£10, US$15, very approximately) for 4/5 litres in Australia (where it is informally called "goon").

The primary benefit that bag-in-box packaging offers to consumers is that it prevents oxidation of the wine during dispensing. After opening, wine in a bottle is oxidised by air in the bottle which has displaced the wine poured. Wine in a bag is not touched by air and thus not subject to oxidation until it is dispensed. Cask wine is not subject to cork taint or spoilage due to slow consumption after opening and can stay fresh for weeks after opening.

Most casks will have a best-before date stamped. As a result, it is not intended for cellaring and should be drunk within the printed period. Deterioration may be quite noticeable by 12 months after filling.

Manufacturers of 'higher class' bottled wines have complained about the cheapness of 'cask' wines, arguing that they provide a cheap means for alcoholics to become inebriated. In particular, the lower level of alcohol excise levied on cask wine in Australia (compared to beer and bottled wine) has been criticised as encouraging binge drinking. Cask wine in Australia is colloquially referred to as "goon" which is a term derived from the word flagon meaning a large vessel used for drink, or "boxy", in reference to its low price and high alcohol content.

Box wine has environmental benefits. The bag allows a content of 2–10 litres, so that far less packaging mass is required.

Read more about this topic:  Box Wine

Famous quotes related to pros and cons:

    Quite generally, the familiar, just because it is familiar, is not cognitively understood. The commonest way in which we deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something as familiar, and accepting it on that account; with all its pros and cons, such knowing never gets anywhere, and it knows not why.... The analysis of an idea, as it used to be carried out, was, in fact, nothing else than ridding it of the form in which it had become familiar.
    Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)