The next couple of months mark the height of camping season. While the rest of the camping public stocks up on gatorade and beer, we wine geeks are determined to ‘make wine campy’. Whether you’re at a drive up campsite or a day out backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, there are a lot of benefits to packing wine instead of beer or alcohol. Benefits of Camping with Wine Bulk, Weight, and Waste Do you really want to go camping with a bunch of bottles that you’ll need to drag back to civilization? This is where box wine really shines. Box wine’s packaging-to-wine weight ratio is vastly superior to bottles. Box wine is more eco-friendly than bottles as well, and since you are enjoying the great outdoors, it is your karmic duty to do the right thing. You can even remove the box before you leave home and just bring the wine bladder. Check out all the benefits of boxed wine. Grab a Pack Tap and fill it with Sine Qua Non Poker Face! A Sea Summit Pack Tap can hold up to 10 liters (yes, 10!) and conveniently attaches to your backpack.

Alternatively, you can hang it from a tree at your campsite and use it like a wine tap. Chill it in a river, just be sure to keep the nozzle dry. When you fill the bladder with wine, make sure to get as much air out as possible and the wine will stay good for up to 5 days. Superior Alcohol by Volume (ABV) Wine has an ideal ABV. When camping this means that you get more alcohol for less weight without having to resort to drinking straight whisky. Beer can’t really compare at around 4-6% ABV. One bottle of wine is roughly equivalent to a 6-pack of beer and weighs half as much. Never mind having to recycle all those beer bottles/cans. However, the ultimate ABV is a fortified wine, such as Port or Sherry. Yes, I drink Sherry while camping, what of it? Camping with Wine Tips Whether it’s weenies on a stick, some fresh fish from the lake, or even vegetarian fare, camping with wine usually accompanies open-fire cooking. The time of year is as important as the food, so even though you may be grilling up some juicy steaks, a heavy high alcohol red wine might not drink that well in the summer heat.

As a general rule, pick a lighter wine that’s under 14.5% alcohol. dry red wines in orderRiesling is a great thirst quenching wine perfect for summer festivities. best indian wine for healthAlso consider having fun with a wine cooler blend or sangria.best wine in turkey Do you have something to drink out of? Can you open your wine? Does your wine need to be cold or can you serve it at ambient temperature? Remember screw top and box wines don’t require any tools to open. You can drink right out of the 500ml box wine and mini-bottles. Your car will be hot, so keep the wine in a cooler on your way to the campsite and get it somewhere shady as soon as you arrive. Keep the wine out of direct sunlight as heat can cook your wine. If it’s a real scorcher and you are near some water you can float your bottle (or bladder from inside the box wine) in the river or lake to cool it down before drinking.

Remember to keep the opening out of the water to avoid bacteria contamination. Using a tie-off point on a nearby tree branch is the most effective way to keep the bottle stationary and spout side up. Did you know you can camp in wine country?Why take wine camping when you can bring camping to wine country?A small, hot village in the south of France, so still that you longed for church bells to ring in the hope they might create a small breeze. “This,” said the Châteauneuf-du-Pape producer, in the cool of his cellar, giving us a vin de table before we got on to the really expensive stuff, “is our camping wine.” This – it was Plan Pégau – was really good and not, actually, that cheap. But I liked the idea of the genre. Read: Best wines on offer this summer “Camping wine doesn’t come in bottles,” said a friend when I told her. “It comes in a wine pouch or bag-in-box. The Aussies use the leftover 'goon’ bags to blow up as pillows. My definition of camping wine is that it’s the equivalent of festival dressing – casual, robust enough to see you through any sort of weather, and with a bit of flair.

I don’t mind what container it comes in as long as it’s a wine that, once it’s poured, could deal with a plastic beaker or a paper cup, a nose full of bonfire, or the smell of frying onions and mud and still taste good. Camping wine, to me, is a drink you might want on any outdoor adventure or event – at a picnic, in a field listening to a load of performers on a stage, on the beach or up a mountain. It’s wine to drink when there’s something else going on – but that’s not an excuse for boring or substandard. I like whites to be vivid, thirst-quenching and free of oak (unless, of course, a kind benefactor wants to roar up in a sports car with a fancy white from Bordeaux or Burgundy). Outdoor reds I prefer either light and energetic or fuller but not too smoothed out. If it’s a red bordeaux then let it be young with tannic elbows and a pert, acidic back-kick. If a nebbiolo then it would never be a silky old barolo but a bitey young Langhe nebbiolo. Give me a gruff Portuguese red or a smoky South African syrah;

a vin de pays or a marcillac that tastes of blood and dirt. A piercing Antipodean riesling, a txakoli – one of those whites that taste like vinous Alka-Seltzer, and I mean that in a good way – from northern Spain, or a simple but characterful raspberry-pink rosé – with or without bubbles. You don’t always have to pack the wine yourself, either. If you are out and about a lot, you might spot or have spotted the pale-blue Citroen H Vans and sleek Airstreams of the Wondering Wine Company, which spend summers parking up at events, from the Cheltenham Jazz Festival to Jamie Oliver’s Feastival to the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and dispensing wine in stemless polymer “govino” glasses – both relaxed and chic. “Our Bisol prosecco is always very popular,” says Gareth Groves of Bibendum, which owns these groovy vehicles. “We sell a lot of champagne at Royal Ascot, but at what you might call more regular events and festivals what people seem to like is New Zealand sauvignon blanc and some of the more offbeat stuff such as Domaine Lafage pinot gris from the Roussillon and Kung Fu Girl riesling from Washington State.