The New Wine "Bottles"
From cans to forties, these new-school wine vessels prove it's not just a bottle's game anymore.
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Photo By: Isaac74 ©Isaac74
©M. Steffen, Untapped Media
Beyond the Bottle
The days of grabbing a bottle off the $12-and-under table are gone; choosing a wine just got a little more complicated. Now you can consider buying a keg of wine to bring to a party, or a giant box (it's classy now), or vino in cans. Just when you thought you’d come to terms with screw-top wine (common and reputable nowadays), vino packaging has undergone yet another makeover. Meet the newcomers.
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The Can
Cans of wine, particularly Underwood's typography-driven quartet of offerings, are ubiquitous this summer. But Kimberly Prokoshyn, head sommelier of New York City restaurant Rebelle, loves Fiction, from Field Recordings, "a juicy red wine in a can" that would be ideal, she says, for a barbecue.
Photo by David Reamer
The Keg
The Big Box
The Bottle-Sized Box
Five liters sound daunting? Not to worry: There are plenty of "regular-sized" 750-milliliter boxed wines on the market. Carlin Karr, beverage director of Frasca Food and Wine in Boulder, loves the offerings from Fuoristrada vintner Michael Schmelzer, particularly his Sicilian Grillo and bright Tuscan Sangiovese. "Think of them like adult juice boxes!" enthuses Karr. "They are super-affordable [and] perfect for the beach, a hike or anywhere that doesn't allow glass containers."
Photo by Matthew Ankeny
The Small Box
Single-Serve Stemmed Glasses
Zipz, whose brainchild is a sealed, single-serving glass of wine in a stemmed plastic wine "glass," reportedly landed millions of dollars of funding on the TV show Shark Tank. It's quite likely that you'll be seeing these glasses at a ballpark near you someday very soon.
Photo by The NYC Talon
Single-Serve Stemless Glasses
Mini Single-Serving Bottles
It's hard not to be charmed by a tiny bottle of bubbly, which is becoming more popular as a wedding favor. If you're splurging, a teeny-tiny Moot & Chandon rosé mini is tough to beat, cuteness-wise.
Photo by Joy Jacobs
A Forty! Of Wine!
You've likely seen half bottles (375 milliliters) of wine and "regular" bottles (750 milliliters), in addition to the solid-value liter bottle and the high-rolling 1.5 milliliter magnum bottle. But two sommeliers we spoke to recommended Julien Braud's 40-ounce bottle of Muscadet. Bryn Birkhahn, head sommelier of New York City's Pearl & Ash, pronounces it "the perfect fresh, dry summer white for a picnic when one bottle may not be quite enough, but you don't want to go overboard."
Photo by Michele Ouellet