Fugitive wine in a box. Photo: Supplied
By Emily Brookes*
Cask, box, bag-in-box. Chateau Cardboard. Goon bag.
Whatever you call it, you probably don't have a high opinion of box wine. In Aotearoa it's been synonymous with "bad wine", a hangover from the 1980s when, much cheaper per millilitre of grog than glass bottle and cork, it became the preferred receptacle for wine made from inferior grapes that would otherwise have been waste.
As our wine industry matured, serious winemakers turned to bottles, leaving casks the preserve of students looking for a cheap way to a good night and those who make mulled wine at Christmas.
"It's very unusual for New Zealand that no one picked it up and said, 'Actually this is a great delivery system'," says winemaker Matt Dicey.
Until now.
There's nothing about being in a bag that makes wine bad; in fact, thanks to its one-way valve, it keeps wine fresher once opened for longer than a bottle. And Dicey is among a wave of Kiwi winemakers on a mission to show that box wine can be good wine, and that we should all be embracing it.
Dicey and his brother, James, make wine under their eponymous label in Bannockburn, Central Otago. Far from cheap and inferior, their Pinot Noir typically starts at above $35 retail, and they farm organically.
The Dicey brothers. Photo: BAYLY&MOORE
The brothers' eco-consciousness led them to put some of their wine into box (their preferred term).
"For 98 percent of people that buy wine, they drink it immediately, and the need for a bottle in that circumstance is non-existent," says Dicey. "It's actually a terrible delivery system, because it's so carbon intensive."
Fellow winemaker Nadine Worley is from Australia - where the "goon bag" was developed, in the 1960s. After 10 years making wine at Marlborough's Mud House, she started teaching sustainability in the Viticulture programme at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT).
"I was down this big rabbit hole, which you only have time to do in academia, going - oh my god, why is no one talking about this? You've grown the grapes, you've made the wine, the last thing you do is package it, and that has such a big impact on your environmental footprint".
So when she and her friend, viticulturist Logie Mackenzie, decided to launch their own organic wine label, they looked for a non-glass packaging solution.
Nadine Worley and Logie Mackenzie from Fugitive wines. Photo: Supplied
Fugitive launched in 2021 with Sauvignon Blanc in stainless steel kegs and reusable bottles. But as of 2023, at Fugitive bottles are out, and wine in 2L fully recyclable soft plastic bladders held in cardboard boxes are in.
"I was really anti-plastic, so that's something I had to wrestle with," Worley says. She was swayed by studies that showed these materials netted 40% less carbon emissions than a standard 750ml bottle.
Dicey is a much bigger operation than Fugitive, making many different wines, most of it bottled.
Still, when the brothers decided to put some wine into box (aluminium was discounted for being difficult in large format; PET is arguably the best in terms of recyclability but allows too much oxygen to enter the wine), they chose to lead with a big hitter.
"We decided Central Pinot was the perfect thing to change the perception of what's being delivered in box," Dicey says. "The perfect foil for people's negative connotations around what it meant to have a cask wine."
The answer to whether the same wine would taste different in bottle as opposed to box is "an easy yeah-nah," says Dicey. "There should be no taste difference between bottle and box."
So how has the market responded?
"Only once have I been booted out of a restaurant for pouring someone a glass from a bag-in-bottle," Dicey says. "You certainly have some pushback from a certain subset within consumers, but you get no pushback from others."
Those born after the era of boxed Muller-Thurgau, the same generation that has grown up with the threat of climate change, are generally much more open-minded.
Once opened, a box wine will stay fresh for a month, even six weeks - much longer than a bottle of wine. Dicey reckons that promotes responsible drinking, and brings pricing benefits.
"It can be a $15 glasspour and there's no wastage."
Both Dicey and Fugitive had to import their own bagging machines, as there were none available in Aotearoa.
But recently Wineworks Marlborough, a contract bottling and warehousing company, has imported its own bagging unit from France.
"We have many clients who are looking at alternative packaging formats to be able to offer their premium product, just delivered in a different way," says CEO Peter Crowe.
Though trials of the machine only finished in early November, Wineworks already has a few clients lined up, among them Muse, another Marlborough winery making only box wine. "We have interest from around 20 different winery clients considering this format," Crowe adds.
He credits Dicey with leading the charge in boxing "premium (New Zealand) offerings at premium pricing", saying research shows others should quickly follow suit (Mt Edward has notably boxed some of the 2023 wines in its lower-budget Ted range).
"Overseas there is a growing trend for premium wines packaged in bag-in-box, particularly amongst younger drinkers," Crowe notes.
"This is just the start of the box wine revolution," Worsley agrees. "We did it with screw caps - people used to think you can't put good wine under screw cap."
There will always be a place for glass bottles, particularly for ageing wine. But, "that glass bottle we've been using, it's pretty much the same bottle for 400 years. So I think it's time we had another look at that."
*Emily Brookes in a freelance lifestyle and entertainment writer.
