Boxed Wine in France? Yes, Indeed

Boxes of Wine in Collioure, France

I love walking around villages of France in the early morning, and watching the delivery trucks make their rounds—it helps me decide where to eat that day; that is, if I see fresh, local produce off of a small vendor’s truck, that bodes well for a spot. But when I see, for example, frozen fish from South Africa in restaurants along the French Mediterranean shoreline, my heart sinks a bit.

Seeing these boxes of wines stacked up outside a local cafe made me happy, because I had been to this particular café and enjoyed the “vin au pichet” quite a bit. (Vin au pichet is wine served, inexpensively, in a pitcher). I had heard American winemakers say that Europeans had long accepted that good wines could come from a box, but I’d never actually seen much of it in grocery stores or in private homes. Knowing that a good café served a wine that I liked—and poured it from a box—made me believe the P.R. spiel a little more.

R. Müller Riesling

While I have yet to get my hands on a great French boxed wine here in America, there are quite a few good boxed wines from other spots in the world that are available here. A few of my faves:

Boho Vineyards California Old Vine Zinfandel ($24/3L): A fruity red that reveals a graceful, non-jammy side of Zin.

Big House White California White Wine ($22/3L): This merry blend of lesser-known white grapes, like Malvasia Bianca, Muscat Canelli, and Viognier, results in a fascinatingly fragrant, freshly fruity wine.

R. Müller Riesling (Landwein Rhein, Germany; $24/3L): Medium-sweet, with a fruity-crisp balance and a nicely low alcohol content (9.5%).