A lot of people who live in the Loire and Cher river valleys buy their wine in boxes. It's less expensive packaged that way than in bottles. It's better for the environment. Bottles are expensive to transport because they're so heavy. The wine box, called une fontaine à vin or un BIB — pronounced [beeb] — aren't meant for long-term wine storage, but they'll keep the wine fresh for many months if they haven't been opened, and for three or four months after you open them and start serving the wine. At home, people fill bottles that they re-use, or they serve the wine in pitchers. This is how we buy and serve wine most of the time.
For the first 10 or 12 years after we came to live here, we often bought wine en vrac (in bulk. The winery people would pump wine from their vats to fill 10-liter jugs that we bought for that purpose. The wine in the jugs would start oxidizing, slowly turning into vinegar, once the the jugs were open. To keep it fresh longer, we would put it into bottles that we saved and re-used. We bought corks and a corking machine (which cost about 25 euros). But then a lot of the local wineries stopped selling wine in bulk. They sell it mostly in BIBs and bottles now. Bottling wine was fun for a while, but over the years we got tired of doing it. Now we buy BIBs most of the time. We've been recycling the bottles that we saved for the first few years we lived here.
As you can see, the BIB "bladder" is fitted with a little spigot that makes it easy to put the wine into a bottle or pitcher that you take to the table or store in the refrigerator. In France, wine is an everyday product, not a luxury item. Just because a wine is not bottled and aged doesn't mean it's not good wine. It's vin de soif, not vin de garde. Above is a BIB of Gamay red wine, which is definitely a vin de soif. I bought it at a winery in the nearby village called Châteauvieux.
Because the wine in a BIB is actually in a plastic bag that shrinks as you empty it, the wine is not much exposed to oxygen. It's contact with oxygen that turns wine into vinegar. When the BIB is empty, we recycle both the cardboard box and the plastic bag. Above right is a BIB of rosé that we bought at the supermarket. It's sold that way in supermarkets as well as at wineries.
I think boxed wine was invented in Australia. The bladders here are a foil product and of course they are mass produced and sold complete. It is pretty well only people over sixty still buy boxed wine. It is generally not of high quality. There are two problems with boxed wine in my opinion, one being you can be quite unware of how much you are drinking, unlike with bottles. The other is boxed wine also seems to have a high evaporation rate.
ReplyDeleteI don't serve the boxed wine right out of the box into a glass. I put it in a bottle. So I know how much I'm consuming. I've never noticed any evaporation. Since the bag in the box is airtight, it doesn't make sense that the wine would be evaporating. And yes, I'm over 60. You live in a city in Australia. We live out in wine country in France. Things there are bound to be different from things here.
DeleteIn my house, all wine has a high evaporation rate. I open a bottle before dinner, and pretty soon it evaporates.
DeleteIt’s such a responsible and smart way to sell and enjoy wine for home. A great way for restaurants to serve house wines, as well, I would imagine. No more jokes about box wines.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post, Ken. Thanks especially for the pictures. Like, Mitchell, I used to think that box wine was purchased by only poor, college students.
ReplyDeleteBettyAnn
Do those boxes fit easily into your fridge? I only see French wine in bottles at my local Piggly Wiggley. People are stocking up for Christmas now.
ReplyDeleteThe 10-liter boxes are too big to put in the fridge, but you can buy 5-liter and 3-liter boxes that do fit in the fridge.
DeleteInteresting read - I don't know that I've ever seen boxed wines here in CA, though surely they exist.
ReplyDeleteYears ago, I figured out how to ship wine from France, back to the states, where I cleared it through customs. Quite an adventure, as I had to find a shipping company that was licensed to ship alcohol, a winery that would supply the export papers, and a customs office that would let me clear the wine. Thankfully my wife speaks fluent French, and it all worked quite well. Since I was paying for the weight of twelve cases, I thought I would save some costs by adding 5 liter bibs to the shipment. Unfortunately for me, the foil bags swelled during the air freight part of the journey, and developed pin prick holes, and quickly turned to vinegar! O well, went back to bottles only. Fun adventures!
ReplyDeleteI never thought about the effect of low atmospheric pressure on the plastic bags of wine. By the way, I don't think sparkling wines (Champagne, Vouvray, etc.) are ever put into BIBs.
Delete"I don't think sparkling wines (Champagne, Vouvray, etc.) are ever put into BIBs." I think you're right. It may be logistically impossible.
DeleteI recently started ordering boxed wine here in California. It keeps longer in the box in the fridge (rosé). I also have a red and white to try. Much easier to get delivered, and to drink. ~ Christine
ReplyDelete