I bought a wine Friday night that came in a large juicebox type container: Bandit from 3 thieves. I'm not sure why - maybe my spirit of adventure was acting up. But I must say it was a decent wine; a pinot grigio, suficiently dry and clean tasting. It came from Wal*Mart and the price was under $8 for the liter.

I mentioned it this afternoon to my local wine merchant, while I was picking up a couple more expensive wines. He was familiar with it and admitted he used to sell it himself once upon a time.

I know we are being told to accept quality wines with screw tops. Is this the next step. Mrs BamaVol liked the wine, but insists that it be decanted and served in a carafe.

The US is greatly behind the rest of the world for wine packaging. Here a "better" wine has to have a cork, and few wineries dare to go against this. Elsewhere lots of wine is package in plastic (either box or bottle) and even in paper bottles (like orange juice), so quite a bit past a screw top. I've seen wines costing USD 20 per liter packaged like this, and it works well. But it would never sell in the US.

There are some good box wines - my last purchase was a fantastic Premier Cru White Burgundy for summertime drinking. Great because 3 Liters of wine could be dispensed over time without oxidizing - one of the great benefits of Box Wine.

Australia has been putting some absolutely brilliant wines into boxes (casks) for decades now - the collapsible lining ensures no oxidising as mentioned above. One of my favourites was a Morris of Rutherglen red.

This guy likes to review cheap wines particularly those in boxes http://www.boxwines.org/

There are still very few options for better quality wine in a box that are available in the US. Possibilities to look for include Black Box and Free Range (the latter is all sourced in France). Can't speak for them yet, but they're on our to-try list (assuming the state-run stores carry them). We bought a case of Two-Buck Chuck in Ohio yesterday, though, so we won't need to try for a bit. (We had a bottle we liked and it seems to be the same batch.)

The problem with Bandit isn't the wine so much (apparently good for its price range) but that the tetra brick packaging's only benefit over a bottle is that it's cheaper. The bag-in-box packaging has the added benefit of preventing air from getting in, which allows you to keep it over weeks (which is good, since most packages are 4 bottles' worth).

Banrock Station from Australia has terrific wines in an "apple juice" 1L box. Fantastic!

I quite like box wines but I find them an awful bugger to store in my wine rack !

Read this thread today - stopped by the liquor store tonight - now three boxes are in my fridge.....thanks FT.

My mom always drank Franzia and the like (the low-end boxed wines, the ones on which the general disdain is founded -- and they deserve it!), so I never thought I'd go that route, but the quality available has gone way up in the past few years. I also like keeping a box of dry white and generic red (Target's boxed line works well for this) in the fridge for cooking purposes.

Just be careful that you don't get fooled. That may be a Wal*Mart red in a Target box! They're entirely different. Make sure you report it here if it happens to you.

Ain't that the truth.

That's right -- Tuesday was a good year!

But we're competitive in the "cute labels" department.

I always laugh at box wine... Mr. Kipper's boss (or whatever) in the Marine Corps said he was a big wine person, but only ever drank box wine, and would talk about how quickly he would get drunk, but how he wouldn't have a hangover the next day with it.

No offense to anyone who drinks it, but box wine always makes me laugh.

Agreed. Borlotti (?) Merlot is better than most bottles 2 or 3 times the price, and has topped many lists.