What’s It Going to Take to Get Consumers to Embrace Boxed Wines?

“It’s not boxed wine, it’s Cardbourdeaux,” reads an often shared wine meme. The wordplay, silly as it is, is an attempt to make a wine drinker feel the wine in their glass—if it came from a box—is more legitimate. Boxed wine’s reputation—sometimes deserved, sometimes not—has historically been poor, to put it mildly.

There is now a lot of quality wine coming out of the spigots of boxed wine, and there are some drinkers embracing it, yet that meme and the misconception that boxed wine is always inferior live on in the minds of many. What will it take to get them to change their prejudices?

A very informal survey—based on answers from this journalist’s Facebook friends—found that many drinkers are willing to entertain the idea of buying wine in a box, but they have some conditions:

• The ability to sample the wine before committing to a box that’s the equivalent of four bottles.
• Recommendations from respected wine professionals.
• Wine that is actually drinkable.

There’s a new organization dedicated to that last condition. The Alternative Packaging Alliance (APA) which launched this past April is “on a mission to reduce wine industry reliance on single use glass bottles, thereby decreasing the environmental impact of the industry.” Each founding member of the alliance produces boxed wine, although some of them also put wine in bottle. 

Those founding members include 7 eco-conscious companies, Juliet Wine, Communal Brands, Really Good Boxed Wine, Giovese Family Wines, Nomadica, Ami Ami, and Tablas Creek—all brands committed to putting the type of wine into boxes that consumers ultimately want in their glasses—wine that is quality, or, as the informal survey participants put it, “actually drinkable.”

The APA knows its members are not the only brands putting quality wine into boxes. Its website makes it clear it will welcome additional members. But for now, its founding members have committed to not just producing good boxed wine but also to educating consumers, elevating the reputation of boxed wine, and advocating for the eco-conscious packaging of quality wine. 

The carbon footprint problem of glass bottles is now well known. The production of heavy bottles and their transportation create substantial carbon emissions. And, while the bottles are technically recyclable, a 2018 EPA study found that just 40% of glass wine and liquor bottles get recycled.

Another environmental problem with glass bottles is wine waste, and the waste of all the resources that went into making the wine. Once a bottle is open and oxygen hits the wine, it degrades. If not consumed quickly enough, some wine from an open bottle may end up down the sink. Opened boxed wine can stay fresh for up to six weeks. While it’s called boxed wine, technically, the wine is in a plastic bag inside the box. As wine is dispensed, that bag collapses on itself allowing some, but little, oxygen in once opened and generally over a longer period of time than in bottle.

An Alliance Forms

Melissa Monti Saunders is not only the CEO of Communal Brands and one of the founding members of the APA, she’s also a Master of Wine and has been a champion of boxed wine since 2016. Her advocacy and efforts to get the category to gain acceptance have been like “trying to push a rock up the hill.” But she now has others helping her push.

“I’ve seen real movement in this space with others wanting to get on board, and it really excites me,” she says. She gathered like-minded people at an eco-focused event at an off-the-grid plant shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in September of 2023. 

“During this collaborative party for trade and consumers we got talking and realized there could be a real benefit to formalizing some sort of partnership and getting on the same page with respect to education, advocacy, and promotional efforts,” says Saunders.

That evening, the wheels started turning for the APA to form. Then—it being September—everyone went back to their vineyards and wineries to harvest and make wine. It wasn’t until earlier this year that the founding members managed to talk again about what they wanted to accomplish. 

The result of that talk was the formation of the Alternative Packaging Alliance. 

Ami Ami—producer of smaller-than-the-norm boxes of wine that contain the equivalent of two standard bottles—joined the APA because education and awareness of alternative and sustainable formats are priorities for the brand. Working with a group of like-minded businesses will make Ami Ami’s goals easier to achieve. 

“The squeaky wheel gets the grease and we’re all working hard to get recognition and ultimately consumer adoption,” says Ross Dawkins, co-founder of Ami Ami. “We’re also all going against the status quo of the wine industry so it’s great to be supported by and working alongside folks trying to achieve the same goal.” 

Amy Ezrin, founder and owner of Giovese Family Wines, brought her brand into the alliance because the APA strongly supports the mission of promoting alternative packaging. 

“We are proud to be a founding member,” she says. “Rising tides float all boats, as they say, and contributing to the success and adoption of the format through our combined voice is something in which we absolutely wanted to be involved.”

One brand that already has a loyal following for its boxed wines is Tablas Creek in Paso Robles. The wine world was all abuzz when proprietor Jason Haas chose to put his 2021 Patelin de Tablas Rosé in box—for $95—and the initial run of 300 boxes sold out online in four hours. 

“We believe that alternative packaging offers real advantages to the consumer while also offering the possibility of significantly reducing wine’s environmental footprint,” says Haas. And although his boxed wine sells well (Tablas Creek has since introduced a white in box), he knows the format still has a stigma with American wine consumers. “We felt that working together with other producers of higher-end wines in box made a lot of sense as we try to shift that perception.”

There will always be those wine drinkers who will refuse to shift their perception no matter what evidence is placed in front of them, but boxed wine and its sustainable credibility don’t necessarily need to change the minds of every single wine drinker. 

The Target Audience of the Alternative Packaging Alliance

“Wine sales in general are not what they were,” says Communal Brands’ Saunders. The industry needs to court potential consumers in a manner that speaks to them if the younger generations—Millennials and Gen Z—are to embrace wine like the older generations have. 

“Look at the broader market of potential consumers coming online,” says Saunders. She believes they’re not interested in wine with the same vibe that older generations clamored for, such as expensive Napa Cab in heavy glass bottles. 

What will resonate with younger consumers, Saunders believes, is wine being clear about its value system. 

“I don’t think the industry as a whole has been doing a great job at that and that’s come at a cost,” she says. “When I’m out in the market, singing, preaching, evangelizing, whatever you want to call it, it is that younger consumer that maybe wouldn’t even be interested in wine that finds boxed wine really cool because they’re into [the environmental aspect].”

Ami Ami’s Dawkins is also targeting the “Zellinials,” a marketing term that encompasses both Millennials and Gen Zers.

“They’re the consumer that doesn’t really have a perception of boxed wine and just wants great wine in a more convenient and sustainable package,” he says. He sees quality boxed wine as a “gateway drug” to the world of wine for the younger legal drinkers.

“Our packaging and brand are fun, approachable, and unpretentious, pretty much the opposite of what the wine industry currently focuses on,” says Dawkins.

But older wine drinkers are welcome to the boxed wine party, too. Tablas Creek’s Haas believes most current wine lovers are his target audience, especially those with a focus on environmental sustainability.

“We’ve had so many people tell us that ours was the first box of wine they’ve ever bought and they’ve been amazed at how convenient and great it is to have a box just waiting for them in their fridge,” he says. 

Educating consumers that quality boxed wine exists is important, but if retailers won’t carry those wines—and consumers can get them only online—there’s another obstacle to overcome.

“How many times have I heard a retail buyer tell me they don’t think their customers will buy a box, and how they certainly won’t buy a box if it doesn’t cost the same outrageously low price ($20 to 25) that the industrial brands cost,” says Giovese’s Ezrin. She’d like to see retailers try harder. “Put great box wines in the front of your store on the value table and train your staff to get behind them. The customer is already there for great box wine.”

Once it’s in stores, will quality boxed wine ever be the main product on store shelves? Probably not in the foreseeable future, and that’s okay.

“I don’t think the market for what we’re doing is going to ever be mass market. It sort of cuts against what we’re doing. The wine is not what it is anymore if it’s mass market,” says Saunders. “But the wine market is pretty big, and even if we were to get a small percentage of that, it’s still pretty significant. We’ll still have an impact,” she believes. 

And with the help of the Alternative Packaging Alliance—and other advocates such as wine stores willing to carry the good stuff and wine pros willing to cop to drinking that good stuff—wine consumers who embrace boxed wine will still be drinking quality wine, in sustainable packaging that stays fresher longer, and, in general, that is a better bang for their buck than the equivalent amount of wine in bottle.