It’s leaner (in packaging), greener, and lighter. Shipping it uses fewer resources, so it has a lower carbon footprint. Innovative packaging means the wine lasts longer so there’s less waste. It’s unarguably cheaper than bottled wine (averaging out to less than $10 a bottle). It’s sensibly portable and completely unbreakable – but boxed wine still has an image problem. Is it merited?

While it’s fine for undercapitalized art openings and casual parties and picnics, few serious wine and food folk will choose to pair boxed wine with their finest meals.

I wanted to find out why so I asked a few foodie folks, a winemaker, and a wine store clerk to give me their opinions.

“I’ve never tasted a boxed wine, but a packaging strategy that reduces waste in the food system gets my vote. My feelings are somewhere between neutral and positive, but I’d have to swirl a glug in Riedel glassware or perhaps more appropriately a wide Mason jar to be sure,” said Haven Bourque, Founder HavenBMedia, and contributor to CivilEats.com.

“Wine makers are probably not putting the wines they want to age in boxes. People who really love fine wines and spend good money on cheap wine, green packaging on a nice bottle want the cork, the label, the bottle, the ceremony,” says Dan Glover, Winemaker L’Object Noir Pinot Noir.

“Many of the boxed wines are very drinkable in certain situations. Like a nice fruity zin with a burger or a Sauvignon Blanc at a picnic, but I don’t think that boxed wines will supplant the bottle in the near future. One very good reason beyond image is that some of the world’s finest wines need to be aged. They are alive and change in interesting ways as the years go by. I feel in order to age a wine properly, you need a cork. A real cork. Not a plastic one. This is because it is the tiny amount of air that seeps in through natural cork that ages the wine. This doesn’t happen in a box. Wines in boxes are in a sterile environment. They will last a long time, but they won’t age or change.”

At my local wine store, Paul Marcus Wines, I spied a small selection of boxed wines. I asked the clerk, Ryan VerHey, about the wines and also about how consumers react to them. He told me that usually people are incredulous that the store would recommend boxed wines, but when the employees lead with the green story to convince people to try them, they’ll usually listen.

He starts by telling customers that the packaging is greener, lighter, and lower carbon to ship. He also talks about value and convenience. Most of the wines at Paul Marcus work out to under $10 a bottle. He told me they’re great to keep around if you cook a lot because you can use a little for cooking and a little for the cook. He also mentioned that they are great for camping and for people who bike, because they are lighter. This is something I hadn’t thought of. I’m often pedaling bottles of wine to dinner parties and the thought of lightening my load is quite attractive. I asked if they had to taste a lot of boxed wines before they found some that they liked enough to carry. He told me no, since the distributors know what the store’s buyers like and would only bring the best of the of the box, such as the Pierre Plouzeau Chinon in the 5-liter bag-in-a-box. It works out to be the equivalent of 6-2/3 bottles for $52, or $7.80 per “bottle.”

Want to try a boxed wine? Some of our fellow bloggers have done their homework so there are lots of reviews out there on the web.

Serious Eats took a few for the team, saying most of the boxed wines they tried weren’t so great, but recommending a few drinkable whites and reds.

Meanwhile Epicurious took a few boxed wines on a test drive and came up with four reds and one white they could live with.

Some of the packaging is more green than others and some of the wines are organic, further enhancing their green cred. The Daily Green chose 8 green boxed wines and recommended dishes to pair with them. The wines reviewed on The Daily Green feature some of the most innovative, green packaging. I’m intrigued by the Yellow + Blue certified organic wine, because it was one of the ones my great wine store was carrying, and it’s organic.

Slashfood chose 7 boxed wines to review and were pleasantly surprised by the quality of many.

Ehow reviewed 5 wines, noting their tasting characteristics, if not their greenness.

A few wines show up over and over in the various reviews. Does that mean they are the best? Or are they just the most available? I guess I have some drinking and find out.

The most commonly mentioned wines in all of the reviews were Black Box Wines, Three Thieves, and French Rabbit wines.

Leave a comment and tell us all about your favorite boxed wines – or why you don’t drink them.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Biofuel usage has increased considerably in recent years, mostly driven by government mandates to find cleaner fuel options. But a new UN report brings into question how environmentally friendly these biofuels actually are.

The report, from the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, suggests that before we start patting ourselves on the back for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using biofuels, we really need to examine more closely the environmental effects of producing ethanol and other renewable transportation fuels.

Using a life-cycle approach to the issue, the report states that further research is needed to discover the impact that producing biofuels has on a region’s biodiversity, land, air, waterways and numerous other environmental concerns.

Some biofuels, after all, are much more environmentally friendly than others. For example, using sugar cane derived biofuel has the potential to reduce emissions by up to 100 percent, but using biofuel made from palm oil on deforested land has the opposite effect.

Further research and debate about these differences, the report suggests, would not only help determine which energy crops to grow and where, but also provide clearer definitions and criteria for distinguishing the degree of sustainability of various biofuels.

Read full report here.

Image: twoblueday

It sounds like an oxymoron – Urban Hardwoods, as in city and trees, but it’s actually right on target and accurately describes the Seattle-based company that salvages fallen trees and turns the wood into fabulous furniture.

Not a newbie to the field of green, Urban Hardwoods has been rescuing wood in the Northwest close to their headquarters for more than 10 years. Their wood repertoire includes Douglas Fir, California Redwood, Pacific Madrone and Alaska Yellow Cedar.

And if wood could tell us a story about the good ol’ days, like my Grandpa always could, I’m certain that it would.

Aged wood is higher in quality and shows more character than young wood, making for organic, sexy details. Take a look at the headboard (shown at top), made from California Redwood found in Bow-Edison, Washington. Breathtaking. They also make beautiful dining, coffee (above), console and side tables, desks, benches and even a room divider.

Everything from the milling and sawing to drying and construction happens at the Urban Hardwoods’ Seattle factory. In March, the company opened its second retail showroom, this one in San Francisco’s downtown design district.

Check the website for inventory, pricing and information on the Seattle and San Francisco retail stores.

“People are really waking up to eco in Houston,” says Rex Davis, the co-owner of Eco Suds Hand Car Wash which celebrated its grand opening over the weekend. “We figured if we could make it in Houston, we could make it anywhere.”

Davis and his partner, Mike Winkler, say they couldn’t make it in their former parking garage car wash location due to new EPA guidelines that forced them to reclaim the water used or install grit traps.

That’s when Winkler went looking for something new – something green – and came upon a water-based cleaning solution that is said to be non-hazardous and biodegradable. They spray it on the vehicle and the organic light soap and surfactants dissolve dirt on contact as polymers wrap around remaining particles to protect them from scratching. The dirt residue is wiped off with a micro-fiber cloth and the clean surface is then buffed by hand.

“It has been used in Europe for a decade now and also in Australia and we’re just catching up,” shares Davis, who adds his hometown isn’t known for its mass transit system and progressive environmental lifestyle.

They say response was very good on Saturday and they hope to open more Eco Suds throughout Houston this year, as well as in other markets in the southwestern and southeastern United States. The selling point? Saving water while conditioning the car.

“The process saves between 40 and 100 gallons of water per wash and eliminates waste water run-off,” says Winkler. “It’s better for your car, it’s better for the planet and the finished product looks much better than a traditional car wash.”

His web site shows the proof in before and after shots of an SUV treated with this alternative wash, which the company says cannot scratch a vehicle’s finish during the actual washing process and also conditions the clear coat. Guess Texans like the results so far.

“They really love that shiny finish,” observes Davis.

We can only hope Eco Suds will teach folks in northwest Houston that less is more and that the car wash be shining up more hybrids than gas-guzzling jeeps.