I drink boxed wine, much to the delight of my jackal friends and the cringes of FutureWife. Its delicious and the cheapest boxed red wine is better than an expensive bottle of white. Thats because white wine tastes like horse piss and red wine tastes like sweet nectar. Focus: Whats your stance on wine? Red or white? Boxed like a philistine or bottled like some highfalutin Frenchman?
Growing up in an old-school Italian household I was allowed to have a glass of wine at the holidays. And there was no options, it was red. So to these days I only drink red wine. Nothing overly fancy, usually whatever cheap $7-$10 bottle is on special at the store that week. However, I will say, that if you're going to drink primarily red, get yourself one of these. They will make even the cheapest bottle, or boxed selection taste 10x better.
The Mrsanthropic and I drink wine. Alot of wine. I prefer reds, primarly zinfindel, cabs, Syrah and malbecs, but I also like drier whites. The only sweet whites I like are sweet Reislings (but again, I prefer dry Reisling) and Gewürztraminer. White Zinfandel is a joke, and I almost never drink Merlots or Chardonnay. We drink so much damn wine that we drink it out of whatever the hell we can get it in - jugs, bottles, boxes, paper cups, wineskins and whatever they pour out of the bar mat. While most of our wine is poured from good old-fashined glass bottles, I've had a few boxed wines that were pretty good but none that I thought were fantastic. I prefer real cork to screw tops or fake cork, but that's likely just psychological.
Boxed wine has its advantages. I'll drink whatever someone gives me. Franzia Zinfandel is probably the best white zin I've had. If I'm buying wine for myself, I prefer French from the Cotes du Rhone region, or Bordeaux. I also like whites from Loire(Gewurtzraminer) and Burgoyne, and red Spanish Rioja or Tempranillo. I'm not necessarily interested in the grape variety as where the grape is grown. To me, that is where a lot of the flavor profiles come from, and how each grape is affected by climate, as well as blending. There is a difference between $8 and $20 (huge difference), and $20 and $40. Beyond that, I haven't had the balls to blow $100 on a 22 ounce bottle of grape juice. Cork for me too. It's not even a psychological thing, it's just fucking sexy to uncork a bottle. Throwing this out there, one of life's greatest pleasures is eating a hearty spaghetti and sausage ragu with a bottle of Rioja. If anyone has a Total Wine in their area, make the trip. Place is intimidating and way cheaper than any other liquor store.
This is no lie. I got my wife one of those as a stocking stuffer for Christmas, and she got me one of these. They really DO make cheaper booze and wine taste better. You won't turn a Two Buck Chuck into a Chateauneuf du Pape, but you can make it not awful. Focus: I prefer reds with pretty much everything. My wife likes reds as well, but she's also got me drinking a few whites these days. Wine doesn't HAVE to be expensive to be good. There are lots of wines out there in the $4-$12 that are good. You just have to wade through a number of ones that aren't to find them. Green Fin (both red and white) from Trader Joe's is a good example. It's not awesome. But for $5/bottle it's not bad for a simple table wine, and if you go through a bottle of wine at least every other night like we do, you need to be fiscal. I prefer bottled wines. I've had some boxed wine and it's been anywhere from awful to not bad. Black Box makes some pretty decent boxed wine. MY personal trouble with boxed wine is that there's a lot of it. See, a bottle runs out after 750ml. Sure you can open another, but an empty bottle (or two) is a pretty good bench mark that lets you know when you've had enough. Boxed wine? That's anywhere from 3-5 liters. I can't (shouldn't) drink that much. But it's always there to refill my glass. "How many glasses have I had? Not sure...3-4? Oh then I'll just have another half glass." Eight half glasses later turns into "Ohhh...jusht a little shplash to whet my whistle. *hic* Now then, dear, were we talking about anal? Becaush we should be..." Bottled wines can be MUCH better than boxed wines, and boxed wines can lead to terrible headaches and shameful glances between you and your best friends sister the next morning. Although so can bottled wine, so I guess that's a pretty shitty argument. Bottom line: Drink what you like.
I generally drink bottled corked wines, that are between $6-10. I generally only drink red wine with food. White will do for both food and for sipping. The little boxes will do in a pinch when I'm on a trip and will be in a hotel. Purists don't look at this: Spoiler In recent months I have been adding ice cubes to my glasses of white wine. I can't help it, I love for beverages to be really, really cold.
Freeze a bunch of green grapes instead, then throw those in the wine. Just as good as ice cubes and it won't dilute it. I usually drink reds. Cabernets mostly. But I've also found a couple Chardonnay's and Rieslings that I really like too. I don't spend a ton on wine, one of my favourite reds is La Vieille Ferme is only $12/bottle. Not really heavy bodied, and I find it goes well with everything from chicken through beef. +1 for aerators or decanters, nothing makes most reds better than getting a little air into it.
For the longest time I had no problem drinking both red and white, corked, twist off, box, didn't care. Corked vs twist off is the smallest of considerations for me. Then when I met my SO, she just said "White wine is for whores." And I've drank less and less white wine. Then when I have it, it has to be really good for me to keep drinking it. I can drink a cheap red, but not a cheap white.
If you're just drinking for the effect white is the way to go. You can suck that shit down fast. If you want to taste your wine, red is certainly a better option although a good white is a better pairing with fish, but that's a personal opinion. Your mileage may vary. With the exception of Port sweet wines are awful. Then again, Halloween marks three years since I had anything to drink of any kind, so what do I know?
I'll have more reds in the fall and winter months and then more white during the spring and summer. Bottle, box, carafe...whatever. I don't like those extra tannic wines unless I'm already lit...they just taste like poverty to me, but I'm sure that comes from being broke in my adolescence and attributing "that" taste to poorer quality wines. Ice in the glass of white? Sure... I'm still going to need a room temperature red though. Both black box wines and the Target wine cubes aren't bad. http://www.target.com/bp/wine+cube To be honest, I can't really tell the difference between good and bad wine, although I've had higher end stuff and I remember it being good, but just not good enough to search it out. I've had noticeably bad wine and never put the glass down, so I'm sure my taste is suspect. I do however has a distinct preference for stemless wine glasses and detest drinking champagne out of a flute glass. I also hate cleaning up spills, so there may be a correlation here.
Or just use an immersion blender. Even an expensive bottle of wine can be blended for 20 seconds and it'll be the equivalent of letting it sit in a decanter for 3 hours. Seriously. I saw this and laughed... and then I tried it, and I'm a convert.
Oh, I've done the bottle in a blender trick before. If I know I'm going to have company and we'll be drinking, I'll usually have a few bottles hyper-decanted ahead of time because, as you said, it only takes 20 seconds. However, for those nights when you're just looking to have a glass or two to just wind down, it's easier to just pour it through the aerator directly into the glass. Plus it makes me feel fancy when I pour my $5 wine into my mason jar mug.
White wine is for pussies. "In recent months I have been adding ice cubes to my glasses of white wine. I can't help it, I love for beverages to be really, really cold." Don't feel too bad. Some of my wife's relatives put ice cubes in red wine, as well as in brandy! Hey, that snifter thing has room for plenty of ice. The state of Washington prohibits (or at least they used to) the import and sale of California wines. So, when I was wearing green at Ft. Lewis, we would make the occasional run to California and smuggle back a trunk load of Red Mountain in gallon jugs. It was the cheapest red available, nasty stuff, but better than any Washington wine I tried.
What a timely thread! I adore red wine. I don't have a very discerning palate and will suck down pretty much anything offered to me. Today I bought one of my favorite brands, Black Box, because I am almost out of my current box. It's good. Unfortunately for me, I don't drink nearly fast enough. I've had my old box long enough for the one I just bought to be a slightly different style. Red wine is a mixed bag for me. I consumed the most rotgut pissshit red wine last Christmas and got my first hangover ever. On the other hand, the way to the hangover is amazing fun. I turn into a jolly dancing drunk. I mean lush. I mean, I don't overindulge in alcohol, never! Edit: I am a dumbass, it is a different color because the new box is a different variety. I know nothing about wine except which hole to pour it down.
I hardly ever drink wine, but when I do it's usually with a meal. I'll do a glass or two and then quickly move back to beer or whiskey, or just about anything else available other than wine. Red wine with steak and pork, white with fish and pastas, but I would still prefer an amber lager for the former and a pale light beer for the latter. I used to buy boxes of that franzia garbage when I was in college because it was one of the cheapest ways to get drunk. Champagne on the other hand is a different story. I can drink that shit by the gallon and it doesn't need to be for a celebration.
I love red wine. Specifically Carlo Rossi Paisano. I've drank a lot of wines but I always come back to that particular one. It's a dry, sweet, berry-like table wine that goes well with pretty much anything. I cook with it a lot, but mostly I just like to drink it by itself and get a nice buzz. It's really cheap. I just bought a new gallon today for 14 bucks and happen to be sipping some right now. The only white I like is Moscato. Everything else tastes like rancid dishwater. We had boxes of Franzia at our wedding and people loved it. I thought it was pretty good myself, but my all time favorite was a wine my mother got as a Christmas present a long time ago. It was a magnum of burgundy, but for the life of me I can never remember what the name of it was, but it was the most delicious wine I've ever had. All I can remember from the label was a brief description about smoky flavors. Might have been by Gallo, but it was SO fucking good I drank the whole thing myself. Mom didn't mind. She doesn't drink.
I really enjoy red wine. I'm not snobby about it, and will drink nearly anything. I really like everything except pino grigio. I don't know what it is, but it's just not something I particularly enjoy. One of my roommates in law school and I would drink nearly a bottle every night while hanging out and sometimes would go through two or three if we were having a particularly good time. I don't follow the rules about food pairings and drink red wine with nearly any meal, including fish. It just tastes better than white wine and I really don't give a shit about conventional wisdom when it comes to wine.
My favorite thing to do is to mix leftover champagne with my homemade peach or cherry brandy. So freaking good, and I always forget how potent that combination is - knocks me on my ass. Another wine confession: Spoiler I am a sucker for a cool label, or whatever appeals to me. Right now I am drinking a chardonnay called Cardiff that I bought because Doctor Who is filmed in Cardiff (the wine itself is Californian).
I'm not familiar with this term. Wine confession? We woke up on on of those dreary Sundays where no one has any real motivation to go anywhere and decided to hit the champs while catching up on the DVR. We did however neglect to pickup any OJ, but did have roughly a liter of Sunkist 10. Well since no one is going anywhere and I already have the makings for biscuits, let's get on the white trash mimosa train. If you don't dump a ton of orange drank into it, the cocktail isn't bad for sitting on the couch in jammies and gets you out of going to the store on a Sunday. We may or may not have continued this trend and not bothered to pickup any OJ since. Depending on your threshold for judgement in public or where you live, you may or may not want to order this at brunch.
There is no shame in this if you're in a wine shop. There are a few dedicated wine stores around where I live and picking by a cool looking label has never done me any harm. Now if you did this at a grocery chain or target that happens to have wine, you will feel the wrath of the grapes.