Most Wine Should Be Sold in Boxes

I have written about the glories of Box Wine before, but:

Tyler Colman, reporting for The New York Times (Most Wine Should Be Sold in Boxes):

A standard wine bottle holds 750 milliliters of wine and generates about 5.2 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions when it travels from a vineyard in California to a store in New York. A 3-liter box generates about half the emissions per 750 milliliters. Switching to wine in a box for the 97 percent of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about two million tons, or the equivalent of retiring 400,000 cars.[…]

What’s more, boxed wine is superior to glass bottle storage in resolving that age-old problem of not being able to finish a bottle in one sitting. Once open, a box preserves wine for about four weeks compared with only a day or two for a bottle. Boxed wine may be short on charm, but it is long on practicality.

OK SO: what is really going on here is the age-old evolutionary struggle between glass and plastic. The interesting question for me here is why did wine container technology evolve into the glass bottle in the first place? As my friend Tristan would say: why did the traits of the wine bottle get chosen over time rather than the traits of other containers?

And now, I guess, we need to ask: will other traits start to get chosen over glass bottles - things like smaller carbon footprint and storage?

So, there's a lot, obviously, about the history of technological mass production when it comes to why the wine bottle is made of glass; but one piece about the wine bottle that always tickles me is that it is the perfect amount for two people. Try and drink a whole bottle yourself and you'll end up too drunk; yet split the bottle between four and it's NEVER ENOUGH. (Unless you're my parents, in which case, ok, fine, just one glass will be fine thank you.) Even worse, try and share that bottle between an odd-numbered group and inevitably a fight will break out and injurious things will be said. No, the wine bottle was invented for two, and I love that about it - that's my favorite thing.

The Box, on the other hand, is not made for any specific number. It's a tap system, and taps work just as well for one as they do for 20. In this way, the Box makes more sense in more cases; and this is what I love about it - that's my favorite thing too.

(Via John Gruber at Daring Fireball, who very rarely comments on wine.)

Welcome Back Stained Teeth

I am drinking the house wine at Amherst Coffee - something two hand poured from a 1.5 liter bottle. Something Italian I think. "house wine" is always code for "I would like a wine buzz please". You Will Not Believe is the new home of Stained Teeth.

Um... Cheers, or whatever.

I just want to remind you that nothing is going on.

My Friends. I just don't want my blog to look dead, although all evidence points in that direction. I have been sort-of feverishly working on a large project that will be unveiled soon and which might change the way the internet works FOREVER.

BY WHICH I MEAN: it is made of wire and twine and resembles a duck made of paper maché.

I have said too much, but I will say more; the project is called: You Will Not Believe. I will tell you when it is made to go alive.

OK BUT REALLY, I was prompted to write this post because my good friend from Hampshire College alerted me to his new foray into the blog writing. It is called Casket, Shroud, and Grave. And by the looks of it, 1. Tom's writing is as good as it was in college; and 2. He has magically gotten better-looking. AND LET ME SAY THIS: He was already a handsome man.

Check it out as they say when they want you to check things out.

ALSO: I had this wine recently: K Vintner's Ovide And holy crap was it good. It's been a pretty terrible winter for my friends and I; a winter we have dubbed Our Winter of What the Fuck (as in, "Oh yes, I remember when that happened, in this Our Winter of What the Fuck"); and without getting into details, this wine was brought out for a pretty special toast.

Everyone needs to have that bottle, the bottle that is brought out for the pretty special toasts. And you can't buy it in the moment, cause you're thinking about other stuff; you need to buy that bottle now, that bottle is insurance, that bottle is your IRA - buy it now.

Cooking With Booze — or, Finally, a truly civilised cookbook.

This has recently come to my attention:

Cooking With Booze. The author, Mr. George Harvey Bone writes well and offers many recipes through his website, including many with wine. And might I suggest you use this method while following the recipes: "One for recipe, one for me."

As for the spirit of the thing, an example from the Introduction (to the original edition):

"My grandfather on my father’s side was also a disciple of the finer things. After an unfortunate incident in the Sudan, when his regiment lost an entire Christmas’ beer supply to a freak sandstorm, he swore never to go without again, and was heard to remark on his 90th birthday that he would consider putting more tonic than gin into his daily G&T, but the suggestion was unlikely to meet with much support."

Huzzah.

This has nothing to do with wine; but I promise that I am currently drinking wine

I have mentioned Jessica Hagy's blog Inedexed before, but she posted one yesterday that actually made my heart hurt it was so perfect and blow your mind smart. This is for anyone with a child in the house; or anyone who read Discipline and Punish in the college, for which reference I apologize.

Note to helicopters:: "

www.indexed.blogspot.com

"

Who is this person that she is so brilliant?

(Via indexed.)

Boxes are like bottles without all that glass

NOTE: This is a reprint of an article I wrote for the venerable Local Buzz - an excellent newspaper that is finally ridding itself of its corporeal form and ascending to internet nirvana. Good luck Buzz.

Here’s the thing: boxes might be the most sensible way to serve wine. How many of you have that bottle of Italian red wine that you opened five days ago sitting next to your toaster? Unlike that bottle, box wine (with some notable exceptions) will not go bad. It’s like space wine, packaged in a collapsing plastic bag that keeps out the air. No, it is not necessarily romantic, but then neither is sitting in your sweats watching American Idol. WHICH IS TO SAY: pair like with like.

And unlike wine bottle labels, box wine design begs to look modern and almost cheap. There might be a way to class up a cardboard box holding a plastic bag of wine, but I don’t really see the need. Here are four examples that W.A.G. and I recently opened (or tapped) with friends.

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WINE BLOCK
Producer: Wine Block
Region: Santa Rosa, CA
Grape: Cabernet Sauvignon

The label: You can almost hear the marketing team bouncing ideas around for this one: “Hey guys, what’s another word for Box?” The nifty typography, the gauzy squares of color, the perfect cube shape – this is as close to conceptual box wine as you can get. It sort of validates one’s hipness, this does, combining cheap irony with the obvious I-went-to-art-school-and-own-an-Apple-laptop graphic design. AND: as a friend pointed out while drinking the Block, when finished, this doubles nicely as a Kleenex box.

This box is an example of: the hipster box wine. It actually might be the sole example of this particular style.

Wine/Box Connection Rating: 8 out of 10 – my goodness, if a wine can actually taste like a cube, this one is it.

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FRENCH RABBIT:
Producer: René Clément
Region: France – Vin de Pays d’Oc
Grapes: Pinot Noir

The label: Who cares about the rabbit? Look at that shape! It’s a hexagon! Even though one friend commented that this box looked almost exactly like an energy/malt liquor beverage currently on the market, I think this box evokes something traditional and European enough to actually be classy. It manages to be box wine without referencing what your parents drank in the 70s; and that is huge.

This label is an example of: the Classy box; or, this-is-how-we-buy-wine-in-Italy-you-stuffy-Americans box

Wine/Box Connection Rating: 7 out of 10 – The orange is distracting, but other than that, this light, acidic wine somehow made the packaging make even more sense.

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THREE THIEVES BANDIT
Producer: Rebel Wine
Region: Grapes for CA, but boxed up in OR
Grape: Merlot

The label: Oh bandit. Maybe other countries package wine this way, but the resemblance to either soymilk or a Minute Maid juice box just throws me off. (That being said: how rad would it be if this wine came with a plastic bendy straw glued to the back? OR OHMIGOSH EVEN BETTER: If it actually came as a six-pack of individual serving boxes, each with a straw glued to the back! Okay. I’m going to write them. That’s a fabulous idea.) Also, it looks as if the graphic designer was working in Print Shop in 1991.

This label is an example of: I don’t know. This is just a train wreck. And one thing you can’t see, but which is written on the side and which is even worse than it sounds: a fake personal ad written from the perspective of the wine.

Wine/Box Connection Rating: 8 out of 10 – wine also train wreck. (One friend commented on its ‘gaggy finish’).

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CORBETT CANYON
Producer: Corbett Canyon
Region: Ripon, CA
Grapes: The Zinfandel grape subjected to some shadowy wine-making ritual

The label: From the pink color to the picture of a bottle on the side, this is the platonic ideal of box wine. This is what you’re parents drank in the 70s, god bless ‘em. Though I like really nothing about this box, or perhaps because I like nothing about it, I love it wholeheartedly. This box contains the equivalent of four bottles of wine – four bottles – and it cost $9. Up near the top, it reads in wavy text: “Enjoy a Glass a Day” as if it were an advertisement for tomato juice. And though you can’t see it in this picture, you should go buy this box of wine just to see the small photo of the winemaker on the side – mustachioed, smirking, shirt unbuttoned. It fits with the 70s swinging thing so well you wonder if ol’ Corbett Canyon is the work of geniuses.

This label is an example of: The Classic Box – blurry photos of wine bottles, bad pink wine, no indication of irony.

Wine/Label Connection Meter: 10 out of 10 – Perfect! Perfect! Oh, this stuff is horrible: horrible like a fox.

The story of when I was extremely drunk after the Boston Wine Expo; or, I am trying too hard

Some folks have written me recently asking to hear the second part of my Boston Wine Expo story, which second part I promised in this story on McSweeney's.

NOW: while I will not go so far as to apologize for this audio piece you are about to hear, I will say this: please pretend that I am like that college kid who really, really wants to impress you with how much they know about bell hooks or david foster wallace or something.

WHICH IS TO SAY:

As you may or may not have noticed.

Hello.

I have not posted anything in quite some time. And if you translate that time into blog time, I have not posted anything since before your grandparent's grandparents were learning their first words and inventing steam power.

THIS IS BECAUSE: I am on hiatus.

AND THAT IS BECAUSE: I am currently working on some other projects that require my time and energy, into which projects I will be rolling Stained Teeth in the first few months of 2008. The truth is that while I enjoy writing about wine periodically, I enjoy doing other things as well, and I want to integrate them into one gigantic uber site of which Stained Teeth will only be a small part.

AND SO: I am working on designs for this new site. I will keep you posted. I may post the odd wine adventure in between now and then. BUT: I am not promising anything.

I am still writing monthly on mcsweeneys.net. And I am still showering at least twice a week.

I have stopped shaving.

Thank you, and Persevere.

Wine Adventure 22; or, what it really means to be a wine geek

LATER THERE WILL BE DIAGRAMS, BUT FIRST THERE ARE WORDS:

His name is Justin and I have known him since elementary school. He lives in Chicago now. I am in Chicago. The only other time I have been to Chicago, oddly, was to visit him, visit Justin, but that is just a coincidence. He didn’t live there then. He was there performing in a play, Lost in Yonkers by Neil Simon. A couple years later, we would perform that play together in high school in Houston.

Justin lives in Chicago and I am visiting, here on a business trip, my first ever business trip. I am attending the Seed Conference, about which there is much to say, but to which I will limit myself three hyperlinks: Jim Coudal, Carlos Seguro, and Jason Fried.

Justin takes me to a place called Webster's Wine Bar. It is neat and looks out over smokestacks, everything outside tinted the yellow of highway lights. The music surprises me, delights me. It is not jazz. When you find a wine bar not playing jazz, you hold that wine bar close and you love it and you never let it go. This wine bar is playing Destroyer, and to them I say this: you had me at destroy.

We both order flights of wine, and when they arrive, the server lays out a placemat with four circles on it, one circle for each of the wines. It is a simple diagram, and while it could be way more geeky (and thus way more cool), it is way better than the wine menus I’ve received at other wine bars, menus with jack-ass descriptions.

Here is my theory, and Justin is a good test case. And it isn’t really my theory - it is one of the classic American stories, as classic as the cowboy in the white hat; as the soldier reading the love letter; as the teenager dancing. The theory/classic story is this: the people who were the most cool in high school never adapt to be cool beyond high school, while those who were the most geeky hit their cool stride as they near 30. (Nerds kind of remain nerds, though often become wealthy; and dorks retain their subservient position, always trying just a little too hard to be cool.) This is the theory and it can be applied to most American public schools. (Click on the image below for a larger, more readable view.)

Justin and I were geeks, though I narrowly escaped being a dork, the result of my early career as a cool kid, a career from which I was fired in the ninth grade. Justin was a child actor, knew how to work computers, had access to the internet before I think it really existed, directed movies before iMovie made every kid in the world a friggin’ auteur (about which, you should see the stuff my stepson and his friends make - it is ridiculous and I want to stuff him inside a trashcan for making it). Justin was the kid who received ridiculing nicknames and adopted them with pride. IN PARTICULAR: we called him Smokin’ J.

AND NOW: Justin writes television pilots, Justin runs a production company, Justin races bicycles, Justin might move to LA, Justin maintains a blog, Justin feels excitement. For Justin and for geeks, life is all about potential simply because life is all about really liking stuff.

ALL OF WHICH IS TO SAY:

P.S. While I love diagrams and use them to explain things to myself all the time, there is no way to deny the inspiration these diagrams take from Jessica Hagy at the amazing and maddeningly good Indexed. A true diagram lover’s dream.

New Stained Teeth column on McSweeney's

This is to tell you that if you would please, I would like it, thank you, if you read this thing, my newest column at Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Savvy readers will notice that it is a more in depth version of an earlier post in this very weblog.

And if this is your very first time here, because you read the Stained Teeth column on mcsweeneys.net, and thought, "Hey, as long as I'm on the internet, I may as well navigate my browser to this weblog," may I suggest you start off by reading the right column "Here's How it Works", and then scroll the page looking for the longest title. Why the longest? BECAUSE IT WILL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO DO.

Thank you.