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Obviously we all like wines from the southern hemisphere and we all like drinking wine from a glass bottle but, in the interest of the planet, I thought I should look at the alternatives and whether the wines sold this way are viable.
At present, the five styles of packaging are Tetrapak, like a cardboard squash or soup carton; PET bottle, which looks the same as a normal glass bottle, but is lighter and not quite so clear; plastic bottle that looks like a vegetable oil bottle; attractive plastic pouch with a tap, like a wine box and small individual can. Equivalent bottle price in brackets.
The small can took wine much further away from the norm and made us uncomfortable. We didn’t think much of the red, but Tesco’s French Dry White Wine in a 25cl can at £1.19(3.57) wasn’t bad at all. It absolutely is not suitable for a dinner party and the taste is light, fruity and just off dry, but for a picnic this is a valid option. You’d need to cram quite a few, pre-chilled, into a cooler bag, with the blue thingy. No glasses needed, no corkscrew – ideal! Quite handy for a girls’ trip to the cinema, we thought.
The Tetrapak option, which is used by Banrock Station and Andrew Peace also has advantages. Our favourite wine of the evening was Andrew Peace’s Australian Shiraz NV, which is £5.98 (4.49) at Asda. It had an attractive, blackcurrant smell and was typically sweetly fruity, and as you’d expect. Very handy for Jules Holland at Westonbirt and the like, where glass bottles aren’t allowed. Banrock Station’s Shiraz 2006, at £6.49 (£4.87) from Tesco had a more interesting smell of blackcurrant leaf and gooseberry, but the fruity taste was quite simple. We didn’t much like the Banrock Chardonnay which had an astonishingly short flavour.
Wolf Blass Green Label Cabernet/Shiraz 2006 is £5.49 in a PET bottle from Sainsbury’s, which you can squash with your milk cartons. Lorraine thought it “smelt kosher” and we all thought it tasted like “real” wine. It was spicy, and rather sweet, but it’s Wolf Blass, so that’s expected. Sainsbury’s Shiraz Rose in a PET bottle was less successful, but I think that’s the wine, rather than the packaging. Alex just said “heck” which I think covers it. The flavour screeched to a halt after about 3 seconds.
Arniston Bay’s Chenin/Chardonnay in a pouch, at £7.47 (£3.74) from Sainsbury was an attractive option, and the pouch would just fold up into the bin. It had quite a full, rich taste and was too sweet for me, but I liked the packaging. Sainsbury’s French Merlot in a vegetable oil bottle is £5.89 (£3.57). It was the least good red wine, smelling of creamy toffee and tasting dry and cheap, but I think the problem is the wine.
Something to look forward to, from Broadland bottlers, is a light-weight sparkling wine bottle which is 400g instead of the normal 480g. This might seem a drop in the ocean, but if you’ve got a container of thousands of bottles chugging across the Atlantic, it would cut the fuel bill nicely. It’s being trialled on Perry, at the moment.