Boxed in

Almaden Vineyards, out of Madera, Calif., was founded in 1852, only two years after California got to be a state. And as California’s oldest winery, it’s seen a lot of stuff come and go on the technology front. New cooling systems, refinements in barrel manufacture, better communication between vintners worldwide, those newfangled IV wine drips for guys like me: The company’s been there and done that, all the while staying the course as one of California’s (and the world’s) great ambassadors of that intoxicating state of mind called viticulture.

 

And amid all this gum-bumpin’ about sustainable living and going green, it’s taken itself a step further, as I found out on a recent visit to BevMo. Bag-In-Box technology isn’t anything new (motor-oil makers have been using it since the mid-1950s), but today, Almaden is exploiting it the way a savvy old winery should. Its Heritage series Cabernet Sauvignon, and most of its other 10 wines, come this way—in a corrugated cardboard box with a flexible, impermeable seal that negates the need for a bottle altogether (meanwhile, the wine can’t oxidize because the contents never reach air). You save on your purchase (cardboard’s cheaper); the company stays in business; and the latter reportedly reduces its carbon footprint on the planet by a pretty margin. Everybody wins here.

 

The Heritage Cab goes for $11.99 per 1-liter box (bet it’d cost $3 more in a bottle) at wine stores everywhere, at least the environmentally conscious ones. It’s very, very good, of course, and its novel packaging sparks the promise of universal freshness from first glass to last. Hey—maybe they can come up with a bigger IV drip bag while they’re at it.

 

Now, that’s technology!