Box wine

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A 4 litre cask of Australian white wine

A box wine (or boxed wine, cask wine^[1], bladder pack^[2], goon, space bags, goon bag, goon sack, silver sack of pleasure) is a wine packaged as a Bag-In-Box. Such packages contain a plastic bladder protected by a box, usually made of corrugated fiberboard.

1 History and culture
2 Pros and cons
3 See also
4 References

History and culture

Cheap cask wine is also known as "goon". It is also ironically called "Château cardboard", a pun on the fact that many wine-makers attempt to cultivate a French air by naming their wine "Château-" e.g. Chateau Yaldara.

Pros and cons

While cask wine may have a poor reputation, the packaging method does have its benefits. Bag in a box packaging is not necessarily inferior, but is simply preferred by producers of more economical wines because it is inexpensive. Cask wine is typically cheaper than bottled varieties, often around AU$15 (GBP£7.50, US$12) for 4 L in Australia.

The bag is not hermetically sealed and has an unopened shelf life shorter than bottled wine. Most casks will have a best-before date stamped. ^[3] As a result, it is not intended for cellaring and should be consumed within the prescribed period. Deterioration may be quite noticeable by 12 months after filling.^[2]

Manufacturers of 'higher class' bottled wines^[who?] have complained about the cheapness of 'cask' wines, arguing that they provide a cheap means for alcoholics to become inebriated. In particular, the lower level of alcohol excise levied on cask wine in Australia (compared to beer and bottled wine) has been criticised as encouraging binge drinking.^[4]

Box wine is considered to have benefits from an environment protection point of view.^[5] The bag allows a contents of 3-10l, so that far less packaging mass is required. The material it is made from is very light, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions caused by transport (as opposed to glass containers, which weigh much more).