Every time friends from New York come for a visit, I am reminded how “rotary phone” I have become. Friends become more and more plugged in, more wired, more informed with each visit while I stay exactly the same: a Kotex user in an iPad world.
On this trip, my friends A and P had with them no fewer than two iPhones, one iPad, and at least one MacBookPro (there may have been two). The irony is that AT&T — Apple’s carrier — never works around here so their phones, their lifelines to the global matrix of influence of power, were useless for three whole days. P was stuck hanging gates with Jake. I half expected A to start making cheese. They seemed very Amish to me.
They said they like being unplugged. They said it gave them a chance to breathe the country air and disconnect from their busy lives back in the city. In a nod to their weekend of pastoral living, A and P ventured to Walmart all by themselves and brought back some boxed wine. I think they figured “when in Rome….” But the wine they bought back was Franzia. I had to patiently school them in the way of boxed wine.
Franzia: Not okay.
Hardened boxed wine drinkers (not that I associate with anyone like that) know that the only acceptable boxed wine worth drinking — at least among the labels available at the local Wally World — is Black Box. Black Box has won awards from Wine Spectator and Consumer Reports for its 2008 Chardonnay and 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, according to the Wall Street Journal.
I started drinking Black Box after I saw my neighbor, a famous photographer, knocking back a glass or two a year or so ago. I figured, if it’s good enough for her, it’s good enough for me. And the value: Black Box is the equivalent of four bottles of wine for $20. And because it’s literally encased in a black box, you have no idea how much you’re drinking until it’s all gone. And you can drink it through a straw.
This chick isn't me, fyi.
I may not be up on much, but I do know boxed wine.
All original content © 2012 by Jessie Knadler
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I, too, am a recent convert to box wine. I’m a fan of the Bota box, which comes in a brown cardboard, hip-ly eco-friendly box (& costs maybe $2 less than the Black Box.) I have no vintner’s pride – i’m drinking cheap wine if i’m drinking wine at all, so i may as well be getting a bargain.
Ohhh good info! I am considering boxed wine as I am sick of the
dailyfrequent trips to my corner store when my bottle emptiesI second the vote for Bota — the merlot is fine for everyday, and they also have a very nice zinfandel. My local Albertsons (in an only-sorta-hip part of Montana) carries a French blend by someone called Claudel — also pretty good. Since we shift between my house, my sweetheart’s house in town, and a cabin down valley, I’ve found that leaving boxes works out better than leaving half a bottle … plus, all those bottles! Fie!