The other problem with boxed and canned wine?

It’s our old pal availability – of course

Last month’s post detailing the problems with drinking box and canned wine for dinner – and that weren’t about quality – didn’t include one other handicap.

It’s not easy to find either on store shelves, save for a handful of national brands. It’s an especial problem for boxed wine; periodically, I’ll get a release about a new and exciting box, but it will only be for sale at three stores, two on one coast and one on the other.

In other words, our old pal availability.

This came to me when I was looking through my tasting notes for something to do as a wine of the week, and I realized that one of the wines that I marked to use came in a box (though not one that I had used for the dinner post).

Ha! I thought. This would be a perfect followup to the dinner post – and it is, but for the wrong reason. It’s almost impossible to buy the wine in the U.S. There’s one retailer on Wine-Searcher, none on Pix, and only three on the first page of a Google search.

Which is a damned shame, since this is just the kind of wine to keep around the house. It’s the 2021 Trampa Malbec, which I got as a sample. The suggested retail price is $24 for a 3-liter box, which works out to $6 a bottle.

And I liked it — and this comes from someone who doesn’t much care for Argentine malbec. From my notes: “Simple and straightforward — juicy, bright berry fruit, not much in the way of tannins, and something oakish that isn’t too oakish. Outstanding value at $6 a bottle.”

In this, it’s exactly the kind of cheap, quality wine – in a non-traditional package, as well – that the wine business claims it needs and wants so it can attract younger consumers. So is it easy to buy? Of course not. And we know why that is, don’t we, three-tier system?

Is it any wonder I worry about the future of the wine business?

Photo: Zachary Kadolph on Unsplash