10 Best Boxed Wines in 2023 [Essential Picks!]
The mere mention of boxed wine still raises eyebrows, but you're missing a treat if you give it a swerve today.
The truth is, boxed wine is better than ever.
It offers the perfect blend of value and quality and can even match bottled wine's sophistication at times.
It's also faster to chill, easier to share with friends, more convenient to travel with, and less complicated to store!
Our only rule for boxed wine is it must be indistinguishable from bottled wine for a pure, untainted tasting experience.
Join us below as we reveal the top boxed wines in 2023, with something for every budget and taste.
Let's jump in!
Our Recommended Boxed Wines
From spicy, savory Malbec to floral rosés, we believe that we've covered all bases with our recommendations below.
We'd love to hear from you about any suggestions you have too!
10. Wineberry Chateaux de Chatelard Beaujolais
Made from 100% Gamay grapes, this Beaujolais is bursting with fresh juicy notes with a subtle minerality. It goes down a treat with savory dishes and cheeses, staying true to the Beaujolais style with a fruity roundness.
We love this wine's black fruit, mocha, and subtle earthy notes, with a heavy side of red berry bringing a freshness to the nose. Red fruit, limestone, and blackberries abound on the palate, with lively acidity and a long finish.
This boxed wine goes beautifully with rich cheeses like stilton and Camembert, salty pastries, and cured meats. It's easily approachable and perfect for parties, with a soft but long finish and fruity roundness, making it a crowd pleaser.
9. Bota Box - Old Vine Zinfandel
Rich and decadent with black plum and peppery notes, Bota Box - Old Vine Zinfandel is everything you want in a full-bodied red. Raise a glass with pork dishes, grilled meats, and smokey cheeses for a delicious pairing.
As the name suggests, this wine is produced using grapes from old vines with fewer grapes but more concentrated flavors. Dark cherry, baked plum, black pepper, and sage on the nose give way to a dose of blueberry on the palate.
We love this wine's versatility – it's lovely with grilled meats and smoked dishes. The jammy, baked spice profile is also ideal as an aperitif to salmon and tuna.
8. Bota Box - Nighthawk Black Malbec
Fruitier and smoother than Old Vine Zinfandel, Nighthawk Black Malbec is perfect if you enjoy a juicier wine. The ripe blackberry and blueberry notes shine through, creating a fresh and full red that goes down a treat on its own.
The Nighthawk wine range has bolder flavors than Bota Box's standard range, with this malbec offering a delectable pairing of ripe fruity notes with a jammy tone. Flavors of plum, blueberry, pie crust and subtle spice on the finish give it fantastic depth.
Pair this wine with dark meat, game, fatty fish, and rich cheeses. It also goes perfectly with appetizers, grilled sausages, and baba ghanoush.
7. Franzia Sunset Blush
Franzia Sunset Blush is a contender for our favorite boxed rosé wine, with a delicate pink hue, strawberry notes, and a bright, refreshing character. It's perfect on a hot summer's day, with a slightly dry finish perfect for everyday drinking.
On the nose, strawberry, white peach, and a hint of citrus ignite the senses, with flavors of tangy strawberry and red berries. It's easy to drink with a light body and balanced dryness, shunning the sickly sweetness of many other rosés.
We adore this wine with salads, fresh fruit, grilled chicken, and non-fatty fish such as flounder, with the fruitiness helping bring simple dishes to life.
Related: See which Costco rosé wines we recommend in our big guide to budget wine.
6. La Vieille Ferme Rosé
If you love chalky minerality, floral notes, and soft flavors, look no further than La Vieille Ferme Rosé.
This delicious, boxed rosé pops with flowery notes and delivers brilliant depth with a fruity, citrusy palate – perfect with pasta and salads.
Marked by freshness, La Vieille Ferme Rosé has notes of rose petals, violet, and citrus blossom. On the palate, raspberry, strawberry, and citrus fruit compliment the aromatic nose, with a light body and a soft, medium finish.
This wine is lovely with grilled tuna, halibut, chicken, and pork, but it pairs even better with earthy dishes like mushroom risotto.
5. Bandit Sauvignon Blanc
Bandit Sauvignon Blanc goes down a treat when special occasions call for a zesty and fresh white wine. It zings with tropical fruit and citrus, with notes of apple and cut grass, giving it a balanced profile perfect for most food pairings.
Bright citrus, green apple, and grapefruit notes lead to a dry flavor profile bursting with grapefruit, papaya, passion fruit, and herbs. The long, tart finish and full body create a highly crisp tipple that keeps you returning for more.
In our opinion, the best box Sauvignon Blanc around at the moment!
Try this boxed wine with herby pasta, chicken dishes in white sauce, tofu, tuna, chèvre (goat's cheese), shrimp scampi, and feta.
4. Badger Mountain Organic Red
Badger Mountain Organic Red is beautifully crisp and rounded as blended red wines go, marked by dark fruit and jammy flavors. It uses certified organic grapes, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, and Malbec.
The fruity depth of this red wine makes it unique. Blackcurrant jam, dark chocolate, and spice on the nose lure you in, while flavors of cherry, blueberry, blackberry, and leather create a sense of richness.
We recommend this wine with beef, oxtail, game, duck, and barbeque sausages. Try it with unsweetened dark chocolate for an intense dessert.
3. Bridge Lane Red Blend
Bridge Lane Red Blend is a Bordeaux-style, medium-bodied wine with red fruit and oaky flavors. It combines Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Syrah, produced on Long Island, New York.
This wine is easy to drink with spice, plum, and blackberry on the nose, with blackberry, plum, and smoky vanilla flavors. The balanced flavors make it perfect as a table wine, and it has enough character for sipping on its own.
A dusty tannin on the tongue makes this wine perfect with oysters, clams, cured meat, salty dishes, pasta pancetta, and pizza.
2. From the Tank Boxed Rose
Easy-drinking wines don't come finer than From the Tank Boxed Rosé. A blend of Grenache and Cinsault from organic vineyards, this is a crisp rosé on the sweet side, with flavors of red berries, cherry, and strawberry with supple acidity.
This wine bursts with freshness, with notes of strawberry and cream, melon, red berries, and citrus, with flavors of cherry and strawberry with balanced acidity. It has a light body with a medium-sweet finish.
We love this wine with snacks and sundries, sandwiches, salads, and salty fresh cheeses like feta, halloumi, and Queso Fresco.
1. Natural Origins Organic Malbec
Natural Origins Organic Malbec is made with 100% Malbec grapes, creating an inky red tipple with a refined character.
Blackberry jam on the palate pairs with licorice, nutmeg, and spice notes, shunning the fruitiness of some other malbecs.
On the nose, red and black fruit, figs, prunes, and bay leaf create an enticing bouquet. The flavor profile is fruity but balanced, leaning to cherry and blackberry jam with undertones of nutmeg and licorice for a rounded finish.
Velvety tannins and an elegant nose make this wine perfect with beef steak, lamb, mussels, salmon, roast pork, and game.
This boxed wine is available to buy at Costco if you're lucky enough to shop at one of the selected stores.
What to Look for in Boxed Wine
Boxed wine has a bad reputation for being, well, bad. While it's true that there are boxed wines that you should definitely swerve, there are also some really nice wines to be had.
Here's what to look for when shopping for good boxed wine.
Value
Boxed wine is popular because it offers larger wine volumes in one package, delivering unbeatable value for money.
You will typically save up to 30% versus bottled wine, even with multi-buy discounts and two-for-one offers.
However, some boxed wines are dirt cheap for a reason – perhaps the vintage wasn't well-received by experts, or it's produced with grapes that ripen quickly in warm climates (which creates a simple wine with an average flavor profile).
Generally, we recommend skipping the cheapest option for a mid-range boxed wine as the entry point, which usually yields a better wine for the money.
Quality
Improvements in packaging have inspired many of the world's finest winemakers to offer boxed wine alongside bottles.
Simply put, being in a box does not equal a low-quality wine. The trick is always to buy wines from reputable, renowned winemakers. If you're feeling adventurous, you can also try new winemakers and experimental blends.
The best way to assess the quality of boxed wine before purchasing it is by reading reviews – every wine on sale is reviewed or has some online chatter. Retailer websites are often a good source of tasting notes and first impressions.
Packaging
You can tell a lot about boxed wine by the packaging – is it printed or embossed? Has the manufacturer used thick or thin cardboard? How intricate is the art?
Higher-quality wines have better packaging because the winery has a reputation to uphold, and packaging is their products' first impression.
Eco-friendliness is another consideration. Because glass wine bottles, corks, and aluminum spin tops are fully recyclable, boxed wine has lots to live up to.
Thankfully, boxed wine is eco-friendly. The cardboard box is fully recyclable, the plastic bladder that holds the wine is recyclable, providing it is made from PET, and the plastic bib is made from HDPE or PP, both of which are recyclable.
Additionally, plastic has a lower carbon footprint than glass due to it being much lighter, with lower packaging, transport, and manufacturing emissions.
However, remember that plastics only get recycled when sent to the correct facilities – so you should always dispose of them responsibly.
Is there a boxed wine that you can't get enough of? Let us know down in the comments and we'll give it a try!
