The Tetra Pak vs. The Traditional Wine Bottle

I had a nice Winter Break and I noticed some California wines were now being packaged in Tetra Pak cartons rather than bottles. Corks were nowhere to be found. I decided I had to see what the fuss was about so I bought a box of Bandit brand Pinot Grigio vintage 2009. It was a California valley wine so I wanted to compare it to some of the bottled brands I had tasted at dinners over the break.

The packaging is 1.0 L rather than the traditional 750 ml of a bottle. The packaging lists 10 top reasons to go for the bandit brand:

1. Because it tastes good.
2. 33% more wine
3. Lower shipping weight = less fuel emissions
4. 96% Wine, 4% packaging (why waste $$$ on packaging)
5. No corked wine
6. wine to go-go
7. you can toss it in your cooler
8. 1 truckload of bandit tetra paks = 26 truckloads of empty glass
9. Made largely of renewable resources
10. you can crush it on your forehead when you're done

Several of the top ten features are the exact reasons that drew for concern in my mind. 33% more wine and no cork means there's no way to store it for later or to keep the air out once opened.  This means you would have to chug it like Bluto on Animal House and then crush it on your forehead when you're done to be sure it doesn't spoil. Otherwise it's a cooking wine and is inferior grade not suitable for drinking. Trying to be green and lower production costs are great but here it has the potential to leave an inferior product behind.

Taste: I sniffed a strong character of pear and apple with a little spice but there was none of the usual oak I am accustomed to. The sulfides were prominent and it was a squeaky clean fruity little pinot grigio. This would be fine for cooking or for a less developed palate who is just getting into wine. If you are new to wines and you just want to try a fruity dry white on the cheap then this is fine.

The tetra pak keeps it squeaky clean and fresh until you open it so it does work. It saves on packaging and holds more at a lower cost. The problem is that once you open it there is no way to suck out the air like there are with bottled wines. There is also no chance of properly cellaring it. After having the pak open but the lid put back on and keeping it in the fridge, a 24 hour period later the wine is still just pears, apples, and sulfurs. I'm just a little disappointed but if you like a fruity white with sulfides by all means go for it.