Wine in a Carton?

By Nicole Berglund
Staff Writer

With warmer weather quickly approaching, nothing makes me happier than outdoor cocktails after a long hard day at work. There is something so great about coming home, and rather than plopping down on the couch in front of the TV, instead grabbing a nice glass of vino, going out to the back porch to listen to the birds and watch the sun go down with the person you love. The same can be said for going to the park with some drinks, your dog, and a ball (“The B” as we call it in our household since just a mention of the actual word sends Maia, our dog into a tizzy.)

Anytime you can commune with nature while also enjoying your favorite alcoholic beverage is a good time to me. As great as this sounds in theory though, some issues tend to arise when attempting to bring booze in breakable containers to outdoor/public places. Now if beer in a can is your style, you are golden. But if you are a wine drinker like me, things can get a little trickier. Issues including the glass factor and the waste factor usually make this a less-than-ideal option. Not only is glass usually prohibited, it is also bulky and messy and just an overall pain in the ass. Luckily, as the desire for all things environmentally friendly increases, so do new and interesting options for outside wine enjoyment.

One such option is called a Tetra Pak, a portable, recyclable, unbreakable paper carton. Although many wine drinkers may turn their noses up at drinking wine out of such a thing, the old school ways of not only making wine but also containing it are quickly changing in response to our changing world. The need for more environmentally conscious products is not only necessary but also in style, never a bad thing when you are speaking about wine, since wine production can be so wasteful.

Tetra Paks are aseptic containers. To put this in non-scientific terms, the concept takes a food product (in this case wine), and a container (in this case a carton), sterilizes each one separately, then combines them and seals them in a vacuum to remove all oxygen. The result is a product meant to last for a number of years without the need for refrigeration. Comprised mostly of paper, this style of packaging has a ton of environmental advantages. According to the Tetra Pak website, there is 92% less packaging, 54% less energy used, 80% less greenhouse gases and 35-40% fewer trucks used to transport the product. So the next question becomes, how does the wine taste?

For the time being at least, it is important to pick and choose your wine in a carton carefully, because quite frankly there are a lot out there that suck. One that doesn’t suck comes from a group of guys out of California who call themselves The Three Thieves. For this venture, three well-respected wine guys in California, Joel Gott, Charles Bieler, and Roger Scommegna realized that there was a lot of good excess juice out there from wineries that weren’t able to use it all. After sourcing their fruit from many well-known and quality vineyards in and around Monterey and Napa, they then produce their own unique wines at a reasonable price. Calling themselves the “Liberators of World Class Wine,” the joke is that these guys are “robbing” wineries of their high- end varietals, at a “steal.”

Among other ventures, including a partnership with the Paul Newman brand, The Three Thieves have been experimenting with the TetraPak since around 2002, making them the first United States company to do so. Their goal has been to create a quality product for under $10 while also being socially responsible.

Part of the reason they are able to keep the prices down is the packaging they use. When you are able to save on glass and cork, not to mention trucking costs, you then have more money to spend on the juice. The Three Thieves Bandit wines come in five different varietals, a Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Sangria, all of which have been pretty well received by the wine powers that be. With two different container sizes, the one-liter boasts a twist-off cap, a collapsible design, and two extra glasses per container. If you want something smaller, there is a 500ml carton.

A word of caution to all of you parents out there though, this one looks dangerously similar to a juice box- no joke! The liters retail for around $7-$8 a carton, while the 500ml can be found for $4.50- $5.

If I have not managed to convince you that these wines just might be worth a try, you can also find a list of reasons on the back of each carton. Besides the #1 Reason, “Because it tastes good,” which I have already mentioned, there are nine other good ones. #10: “You can crush it on your forehead when you are done.”

Although I am one who rarely buys a wine based on outer appearances, I have to confess that these wines are so damn cute, I just want to rip one open and start drinking immediately, leading me to once again proclaim what should be obvious once you see one of these suckers: PARENTS BEWARE!

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