Boxed, instead of bottled, wine is becoming au courant. Choosing to sip boxed varietals saves half the shipping weight, avoids the environmental impact of glass manufacturing and keeps the product fresher longer (typically six weeks in the fridge after the seal is broken). It’s why more wineries leading the way with organic vino are packaging it in a plastic, vacuum-sealed bag inside a recyclable cardboard box.

According to wine writer Tyler Colman, Ph.D., who blogs at DrVino.com, upwards of 90 percent of American wine is produced on the West Coast, and then shipped to the East Coast, where the majority of wine consumers live. He notes that almost half the weight of an ordinary case of wine is from the bottles, whereas 95 percent of the weight of a case of boxed wine is the liquid. Colman concludes that switching to wine in a box for the 97 percent of wines that are made to be consumed within a year would reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions by about 2 million tons, the equivalent of removing 400,000 cars from our roads.

Sources: www.Emagazine.com; www.BetterWinesBetterWorld.com (lists bag-in-box brands).