UPDATE 4/15/13: Lots of people recently landed here wondering whether Carlo Rossi Founders Oak and Carlo Rossi Founders Blend were the same wines so I emailed Kelly Conrad, my contact at EJ Gallo, to find out. She wrote me back to say: We recently changed the package from Founders Oak to Founders Blend—there was NO change to the wine. Research showed “oak” tended to be a polarizing word, even though most people enjoy the benefits of oak. Hope this helps and please reach out if you have any additional questions. In part two of this two part post about boxed wines which I highly recommend for camping trips like Burning Man (or just to have around because they last so long and have a much smaller carbon footprint!) I review Carlo Rossi Founder’s Oak merlot and cab, chardonnays from Vella, Turning Leaf and Pepperwood Grove’s Big Green Box, as well as Pepperwood’s pinot grigio, cab, and old vine zin. If my grandpa was around today, he’d be keeping Carlo Rossi boxed wine in his cellar.

How do I know this? Because there are still gallon jugs of Carlo Rossi in the cellar–and my grandfather died in 1997!best wine tasting in long island ny I think my grandmother would like the golden delicious apple sweetness of the Carlo Rossi chardonnay and my grandfather would enjoy either the soft round fruity (cherry and plum) merlot or the more oaky and vegetal (bell pepper) qualities of the cabernet. best way to save an open bottle of wineThe color of both are similar but there’s no confusing the two if you give them a sniff!buy dry white wine These are simple wines that will please most people and when you’re camping, sometimes you want to just keep it simple. The chardonnay would be good with appetizers (I liked it best with sea salt pita chips) and the reds work great with BBQ–tritip, ribs, you name it.

These are all 5 liter boxes which is almost 7 bottles of wine! Learn more about Carlo Rossi (the man and the wine!) I also sampled two more boxed chardonnay–Vella and Turning Leaf. Out of all these boxed wines, I expected the most out of Turning Leaf and yes, it seems like the same wine that’s in the bottle is in the bag! So if you like Turning Leaf in the bottle, for camping, parties, Burning Man or just to have a wine around that will keep for a month or more, try Turning Leaf in a bag. It’s got that same oaky California chardonnay taste and mouthfeel. The Vella chardonnay is a favorite of my sister-in-law–it has nice fruit but it’s golden delicious sweet not as sweet as the Carlo Rossi and it has a little more body and heft to it and some tropical fruit but it’s still lighter than the Turning Leaf. Finally, in the chardonnay department, I liked the Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box. I mean I really liked it. Like Turning Leaf, this is the same wine that you find in the bottle in your grocery store but in a box which means you save green (money) big time AND you go green big time (have a smaller carbon footprint.)

I tried it with a lot of different meals and it worked with chicken, fish, appetizers, and more. It’s very easy to enjoy! Out of all the Pepperwood Grove boxed wines, my husband really liked the Pinot Grigio. When I’d open a bottle of something else to sample and offer to pour him a glass, he’d tell me he was just fine with that pinot grigio. This is high praise for a man who usually has a beer or two in the evenings! So if you’re looking for a wine that your typical beer drinker in your camp might enjoy, try the Big Green Box Pinot Grigio. I sampled two reds from Pepperwood Grove also: Old Vine Zin and Cabernet. Read more about how much we loved the Old Vine Zin here. The cabernet is good–balanced and with lots of cherry fruit but honestly, I love zin and I think the zin is an excellent value. The Pepperwood Grove wines retail at about $20 a 3 liter box containing four bottles of wine. Thanks for the samples, ya’ll! I’ll have all but the Pepperwood Grove out on the playa for you to taste!

To find out where, stop by Playa Info –we might be there–or they’ll have info about where we are tasting! Thank you for commenting & sharing! It emerged last week that a majority of Britons think that when a label mentions a fruit (blackberries, cherries) to describe a wine's taste, that fruit has somehow gone into making the wine. Around a third of us are convinced bordeaux, chablis and champagne are grape varieties, and a similar number fatally assume that a bottle with a cork always tastes better than one with a screwcap. Ignorance and snobbery have clouded wine for too long, and nowhere is the latter more obvious than in the British attitude to boxed wine. "Pure entrenched snobbery has held us back," says Tom "Wine Chap" Harrow, a consultant, writer and events host for the industry. "There are certain sounds that every Englishman likes: the thwack of leather on willow, the sound of a cork being pulled from a bottle. We're a nation of ritual, and there's nothing particularly ritualistic about cracking open a plastic seal on a polythene bag.

But get over yourself."I spent some of August on a distinctly liquid family holiday in the south of France. A box of localish rosé in the fridge and a box of red on the kitchen counter were convenient and delicious in the setting. Admittedly, when you took the bag out the box to snip the tip off and salvage the last half-glass there was something unsettlingly ... medical about the red fluid sloshing in the vacuum, but it nonetheless helped to change some attitudes among the more traditional members of my family. The first thing to say about boxed wine is that it's a bloody good idea. Bottles are heavy, expensive and unenvironmental, bulkily packaged and prone to problems like cork taint. Wine in an airtight bag (or "bladder", to adopt the unlovely industry term) avoids or minimises these problems, while the box itself is more easily transported. If you spend a fiver on a bottle of supermarket wine, that sum comprises £2.81 on duty and VAT, £1.50 for the seller's markup and 20p on shipping.

This leaves just 49 pence for the liquid and the numbers are grimmer still if you dip below the £5 mark. The corollary of this, at least in theory, is that you get more and better boxed wine for your money than you do when buying bottled. A 3l box of wine contributes less than 1/10th the landfill discards of a single 75cl bottle, while manufacturing it releases a fraction of the CO2 emissions. The packaging weighs less than 10% of the liquid, where a glass bottle weighs nearly 50% more than the wine itself. Then there's the question of practical convenience. Opening a bottle is a symbolic act and commits you to drinking what's inside, if not immediately, then certainly within a day or two. With a box of wine you can come and go as often as you like. (Admittedly, this can be a bit risky. When the stuff is literally on tap it may prove tempting to help yourself to "the odd glass" with increasing frequency.) Most people buy a bottle of wine and drink it within a few weeks at most, and often much sooner.

Plastic is more porous than glass, so unless you're buying a special bottle or case to lay down, all other things being equal there's no point beyond aesthetics and tradition to buying wine in bottles. Sadly, all other things aren't equal, and even the best boxed wines are nowhere near as good as the best bottled ones. But there are signs the situation is improving. In 2009, Wine Spectator magazine reviewed 39 boxed wines, awarding 37 of them over 80 points to rank "good". I've had some success at home with the ploddingly named but quaffable Sainsbury's House Red, which tastes of ripe red fruit and carries just enough tannins to give it some structure. Harrow recommends the "very drinkable" vin de pays de Vaucluse white, which you can pick up in Waitrose for about £20, as well as a chardonnay from Jean-Marc Brocard. The New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov was impressed when he tried a range of boxed wines last month, particularly enjoying the Côtes-du-Rhône from Domaine le Garrigon.