It’s not your grandmother’s wine box!

This 3-liter tube contains a premium, rich and structured California Cab – the first release by winemaker Barry Gnekow, who went looking for a way to drink outside the box and to entertain without the waste.

“My goal was to produce the equivalent of a $25 bottle of wine that could be delivered to the consumer at under $10 per bottle,” he says.

At $40 a tube, The FOUR Cabernet scores many eco points. It eliminates expensive traditional glass-and-cork packaging, cutting wine bottle landfill waste by 85%. The vino package is 100% recyclable and the label is produced by windpower. The cardboard tubes weigh 20% less than glass and can be transported using less gas.

And it’s not just the package that defies the throw-away mentality. The wine, itself, also endures until all 24 glasses are poured.

“The great thing is that it holds about four bottles worth and stays fresh up to 4 weeks after opening,” explains James Robinson of WineStyles, a retail wine store and tasting club in San Francisco. “Often with red wine, people toss out what they don’t drink after a day or two, because it goes bad.”

Robinson poured me a taste out of the spout, and I found it to be delicious, medium-bodied, plummy and lightly oaked, even on its last legs, about two weeks opened.

The wine maker also promises to deliver white wine in a tube, including Chardonnays, at some point this year.

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