Wine Blogging Wednesday #31
This month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday theme is a little off the beaten path: Roger over at Box Wines chose non-traditional packaging. Initially skeptical, I became excited about the possibility. If the wine were actually good, I would suddenly have wine with an extended shelf life and could therefore avoid pouring so much out.
The first wine I tried is already dear to me. The Coppola ‘Sofia’ Blanc de Blancs is one of my favorite sparkling wines. (See previous post.) It’s happy and easy to drink with its citrus, apple, and pear flavors. But what could be more fun than putting it in a pink can and attaching a straw? Perfect to take on a picnic or on a romantic walk down a beach. I highly recommend buying yourself a Sofia Mini 4 pack for around $12 at Bevmo.
At $14.99 from Bevmo, the 2004 Hardy’s Shiraz wine box could have been a great value, seeing how it equals 4 bottles. However, that was not to be the case. On the nose I found pepper and heavy alcohol. The palate wasn’t any better: very thin, rather bitter, with very little fruit or any other flavors. *Coming back to it the next day, I did find some berry essence and changed my mind about not even using this for Sangria.
I’m still open to finding a good box of wine. So here’s to hoping someone else had better luck.
Wine Blogging Wednesday, Coppola ‘Sofia’ Blanc de Blancs, 2004 Hardy’s Shiraz, boxed wine
….Farley Walker
March 14th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
Is that wine in a soda can? Whoa. Um, I thought wine was a little acidic, and from my chemistry class at UCSC, we learned that aluminum is very happy to become a +3 ion in the presence of acid. My point is, is an aluminum can really the best place to put your wine? Aluminum is a highly reactive metal. I mean, you don’t store tomato sauce in your aluminum pan overnight in the fridge because the sauce starts eating aluminum out of the pan. Same logic holds here, one would think. So, uh… you’re saying it tasted alright?
March 14th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Ok wait… I guess I didn’t think that one through. They put Coke-Cola in aluminum cans and Coke is pretty acidic. Now I’m really confused! I wonder what they do to keep the drinks in cans from tasting all aluminum-ey. Curiouser and curiouser. Ok sorry for taking up two blog posts with my rambling.
March 14th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
Ahren, you crazy monkey. They coat the inside of those cans now with plastics. That way, you only get the petroleum infused beverage and avoid the aluminum munching cocktail. I haven’t had any of the wines myself, but I’ve had the aluminum bottled domestic beers, and their just as, uh, “good” as the glass stuff… Of course, in Mexico the alcohol in everything is so high that it just doesn’t matter. Don’t you want to just drop everything and head south this weekend? Come on, you know you want to…
March 15th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Mexico? Did somebody say Mexico? I heard they have formaldehyde in Mexican beer… you know, so you can use it for wound irrigation in case of a medical emergency. It could happen.
March 16th, 2007 at 3:24 am
[…] Farley of Wine Outlook contributes comments on Sofia Mini Blanc de Blancs (can) and 2004 Hardy’s Shiraz (box). Clearly, WBW participants have a thing for the Sofia cans, and Farley liked the sparkling wine a lot. The Hardy’s, unfortunately, didn’t fare quite as well. “Very thin, rather bitter, with very little fruit or any other flavors” summed up the flavors Farley found. […]
March 17th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I like the black box cab.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:26 am
[…] Sofia Who? As it turns out, we had a few novel choices, but quite a few participants had difficulty finding anything beyond the mass market boxes. We also found some surprising overlap in the choices. By far the most popular choice was Sofia Blanc de Blancs, a sparkling wine in a can that comes with its own bendy straw - Gastronomic Fight Club, My Wne Education, Wine Outlook, A Guy, A Girl, and A Bottle, and Huevos Con Vino all tried this one. To my great frustration, despite the fact that the wine is apparently packaged in Indiana I have yet to identify a local source for this. […]