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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2009 12:53:33 GMT
Trust me, I do not consume or display box wines for all occasions. It is nice to open a "real" bottle of wine with the attendant ceremony.
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Post by Jazz on Jun 4, 2009 13:20:25 GMT
I have sampled a few different boxed wines, some were awful and some were drinkable to decent. I have yet to be introduced to a good boxed wine, but would be open for suggestions. Once, when I was preparing the 'after the funeral' repast at their house, my friends had decided to serve boxed wine. I had never bought it before and found myself in a dilemma trying to figure out how to get the spout to come out. It was, as Kerouac says, an odd sensation poking around.
For a summer wedding, I would serve the wine in carafes...elegant crystal, hand painted porcelaine, simple glass, or pitchers of beautiful colours...the aesthetics would be important to me. Somehow, a box on each table, or a row of boxes, doesn't fit the feeling of the day.
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Post by traveler63 on Jun 4, 2009 14:44:17 GMT
I am new to this board, but couldn't help reading about wine since my husband has bought and sold fine wines. In the industry, there is much debate about screw tops vs corks. In my humble opinion , no wine that you want to keep or lay down for a period of time would have a screw top on it. Wines will age and become better as time goes by and yes you do take the chance that the wine will become corked because the cork might not hold up. Most wine collectors would not spend big money on a screw top wine, they too will have problems. I must say that I don't agree that screw tops conserve good wine better than corks. For most people, 85% of the wine purchased is drunk with the same day, so the point is mute for most people. However, if you are collecting vintage, there is no proof that screw tops are better.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 4, 2009 21:55:06 GMT
Many of us are of an age to remember when pop and beer bottles had little full-coverage cork gaskets inside. The first time I read about using screw-tops on good wine, I wondered if cork might be incorporated that way. That would neatly cover both the convenience and air-tightness of screw-tops and the esthetics of what substance will actually touch the wine.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2009 22:40:00 GMT
I think that the future may be in the synthetic corks for bottled wine. They are not a very convincing imitation at the moment, but with a little work they might get an item that everybody might find acceptable except the people with the cork trees.
Screwing a corkscrew into a cork is indeed a ceremonious pleasure, as well as the little pop when it is pulled out, but it would be nice to never discover that the wine is 'corked' or have one of those dreaded crumbling corks that you have to push into the bottle and then more or less strain the fragments out of your glass (yes, I know that this never happens in polite society).
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Post by Don Cuevas on Jun 4, 2009 22:57:59 GMT
I have no need for box wines anymore. We are SO "over" that. Yesterday, we went into WalMart, Morelia, Mexico, and there was a big display of wines, 3 for $99 pesos. I wouldn't buy any that cheap. Closer in, near the main wines and liquor department (and it is really amazing what they have in stock!), I saw another, classier display, 2 bottles for $100 pesos. It also included real, distilled in Britain, Gilbey's Gin. Whoopee! I stoocked up a couple of Argentine reds and a couple of Furia Chardonnays, as well as 2 bottles of gin. A side note: don't believe that a Spanish Extra Dry Vermouth is dry. It isn't. It's like making a Martini with perfume.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 5, 2009 2:19:45 GMT
Uh, DonC ~~ ALWAYS buy those weird offers in Mexico Walmart! The Bodega Aurrera here is actually Walmart, & when they discontinue an item, they practically give it away. You may remember that recently I got the French ementhaler cheese for 5 pesos per 1/3 kilo? I also got amaretto (okay, off-brand, but still) for 10 pesos a bottle there, 800 gram Abuelita chocolate w/free glass of mole for 20 pesos .... well, you get the idea. That wine at 3 bucks a pop may or may not have been drinkable, but could still be used for marinades, etc.
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Post by gyro on Jun 5, 2009 5:29:12 GMT
Bjd, don't get all defensive and huffy; I just think terms like 'low class' smack of snobbery, that's all.
If you want another example of something that sounds snobby, read post #29, ha !
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2009 12:57:01 GMT
My only experience with boxed wine was at least 30 years ago(I had never even heard of it). I was working in a neighborhood restaurant and one of the co-owners happed upon some kind of deal on it I guess. He bought several cases of this dreadful stuff. It was truly bad. He kept trying to get myself and the other staff to push this stuff on people. Relying on gratuities,this was not in my best interest. The stuff did not move. But, in order to save face for his really poor judgement in purchasing this ,he drank it himself. It was an amusing if not pitiful at the same time ,chapter in that particular restaurants colorful history. I believe the restaurant folded before he could consume it all. I don't think you could even cook with it but don't remember for certain.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2009 13:00:17 GMT
It is sometimes difficult to balance tradition and 'progress.' Box wines probably need to put some more effort into the presentation. As I pointed out earlier, the wooden kegs in cafés shock nobody, just as people who buy bulk wines and then serve it in crystal carafes do not get much grief from their friends.
But I think the mental imagery of consuming a box wine is probably similar to people who eat beans straight out of the can.
In a similar vein, one thing that has always shocked me in the United States (and which I have only seen in movies and TV shows because I didn't live anywhere it was being done), is the whole bit about eating takeaway Chinese food out of those horrible white boxes. Apparently nobody would ever dream of transferring the food out of a carton onto a plate. I would only ever eat something like that out of a carton if I had to eat it in a car or something.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 5, 2009 13:49:52 GMT
I always wondered about that, too. There are certain things that are movie conventions that don't seem to be general behavior in real life. I think the Chinese food container thing is movie shorthand for "breeziness" or something. Movie characters also routinely eat large slices of pizza directly from the box, usually walking around with and even gesturing with them. Those slices never collapse in the middle or have their contents slide off them. It seems to me that way back in the dim past, perhaps when I was a child, that live goldfish were sold in those white paper containers with the bail. And why are those take-away containers always associated with Chinese food? Is it because for a long time it was one of the few "real" (i.e., not sandwich) foods that was available as take-away? Kerouac, you don't want to buy this set for enjoying your Chinese food?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2009 17:05:43 GMT
One of the strangest things is that in a recent French movie (forgot which one) with international pretentions, there was a Chinese takeaway meal scene which used the same boxes AND THEY DO NOT EXIST IN FRANCE. When you get Chinese takeaway in France, it comes in cheap throwaway crypto-tupperware and absolutely never in a cardboard container.
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Post by BigIain on Jun 5, 2009 19:00:49 GMT
Bixa at #36
"That wine at 3 bucks a pop may or may not have been drinkable, but could still be used for marinades, etc. "
That is truly a great quote. Are you part Scottish by any chance? I love it.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 5, 2009 23:08:50 GMT
Yes, I do have Scottish ancestry -- a great-grandfather. And yes, it shows fairly frequently. My point above, though, was that I know how that chain operates in Mexico & sometimes the stuff they're letting go at rock-bottom prices was not originally cheap stuff. (plus who could resist a bargain like that?!)
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Post by BigIain on Jun 6, 2009 20:31:36 GMT
I know what you meant. And I do impulse bargain shopping quite often too.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 6, 2009 21:42:19 GMT
*gives interested look to the plaid-clad gentleman*
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Post by lagatta on Jun 9, 2009 15:47:18 GMT
It has never occurred to me to eat takeaway right out of the takeaway box, unless I'm stuck somewhere without a proper plate.
I always have this idea that someone else might want one, and don't want them to have to eat my spit, not that I have any communicable disease. I've always transferred such food onto a plate or bowl.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2009 16:39:27 GMT
Exactly.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 17, 2009 14:50:33 GMT
Interesting to see this today as I have been wondering about box wines. We are organizing a wedding this summer and on Monday I went to see a local producer to get some samples. He offered to sell me boxed wine -- it would be the stuff he produces himself. I was wondering whether it didn't look too low class for a wedding? It's not going to be a formal thing, but in a small village in the country and more party than wedding. There will obviously be fewer bottles to recycle. Any other good points? Reading this article, I immediately thought of Bjd & her reservations about serving boxed wine at a wedding. Throw caution to the winds, BJ, & set yourself up as a caterer charging obscene prices for McDonald's style finger foods!
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Post by bjd on Jun 17, 2009 15:44:20 GMT
Thanks, Bixa. Food for thought Actually, the only thing we have to deal with is the champagne and wine, both of which have been ordered from producers. The young couple are taking care of the rest, which means that it will be fairly simple but tasty stuff from southwestern France and with lots of cheese. My son has been living in Canada for 2 years and misses good cheese. They have rented the place for 3 days, and there will be friends and family arriving from lots of places. I think they mostly plan to have a big party. And lots of their friends are bringing stuff from where they live, like a huge dried ham from Barcelona, cheese from central France. And the village where they have rented the place is having a bread festival that weekend too!
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 17, 2009 16:05:22 GMT
Oh, Bjd ~~ this is your son getting married! Felicitations to the happy couple and the lovely mother of the groom. It sounds as though it's going to be a glorious celebration.
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Post by bjd on Jun 17, 2009 16:43:24 GMT
Thanks, Bixa. It's going to be a trilingual thing -- French, English and Spanish. I have to learn to dance salsa before August!
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 17, 2009 17:44:56 GMT
We want video! We want video! We want video!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2009 18:00:46 GMT
Actually, a good way to go, if ever this were going to be the traditional country wedding under the giant shady oak tree in a lovely meadow, strings of colored lights hanging between the tree and the barn... would be to serve nice (and chilled! -- this is August!) light bottled wines for the 'formal' meal and to have box wines ready for the evening festivities and dancing and buffet.
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Post by bjd on Jun 17, 2009 18:42:49 GMT
Actually, Kerouac, the guy who sold me the red wine said to cool it a bit before serving, since it will be in August. And he suggested a "lighter" wine than he would have for a cooler occasion.
No formal meal -- all buffet. The groom doesn't have a suit and is not planning to buy one. The bride made her own dress. So it's not quite a "traditional country wedding". We are mostly all city folks even if the wedding is being held in a village.
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Post by gringalais on Jun 17, 2009 19:05:59 GMT
Here we don't have the large boxes with the bag inside, just the tetra type boxes that go from 1/2 to one liter. They are drinkable table wine, but when you can get a decent 750 ml bottle for US$2-3 and a really good bottle for a few dollars more, it's hardly worth it to buy them, you save a bit of money, but there is a definite difference in quality. Really, though, I've never tried a wine in Chile that has been undrinkable. In Argentina, I have, however.
Of course my nearby supermarket decided to have a big wine sale just now when I can't drink because of all the medications I am on. I did buy a few bottles to save for when I get better.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2009 20:56:09 GMT
In France, the box wines come in 3L, 5L and 10L.
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