If you thought wine in a box was bad, you might not want to read this

How about a bottle of the '02 Chateau Plastique?

The ubiquitous 750-milliliter glass wine bottle is starting to get competition from a plastic upstart, both on retail shelves and at a few restaurants.

The bottles carry a "use by" date -- plastic doesn't provide quite the same seal as glass -- and as such aren't likely to find their way into the cellars of serious wine enthusiasts.

For those who aren't as picky, however, the wine is likely to cost less. And oenophiles say that for wine that hasn't, err, expired, the taste will be the same.

"The wine doesn't know what package it is in," said W. R. Tish, a wine educator who writes a blog called Wineskewer. "It tastes the same whether it is in a plastic bottle, a plastic bladder inside a box, or a glass."

Read the rest of the story by L.A .Times Business writer Jerry Hirsch.

RECENT & RELATED

Wine picks by Times restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila

It's not an insult to call a wine "easy drinking"

Recipes from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen

Photo: Joyce Dance performs quality control on an assembly line of plastic wine bottles in Burlingame, Calif. Photo credit: Dave Getzschman / For the Times

Comments

[steveiewievie]

Saying that plastic is more environmentally friendly than glass is a lie. Same w/ stating that the wine doesn't know what kind of container it's in. Everyone knows that a soda tastes different (better) if it's in a glass bottle vs a plastic one. The taste of the container does influence the taste of the contents. Plastic products are horribly polluting to make and lie in landfills for 700 years after they've been used. Glass is simply melted sand and can be efficiently remelted to make new bottles.

[RW]

I''m wondering why this piece was not a journalistic expose of the BPA and other toxic chemicals that will now leech in to millions of bottles of wine and further compromise the health of countless people, rather than a "nod" to the need for "cheap" wine and how good that is for the wine producers. It's discouraging to see such little regard for our nation's health by business in general, and this is only one more telling example.

[Sal B]

"The wine doesn't know what package it is in," said W. R. Tish, a wine educator who writes a blog called Wineskewer. "It tastes the same whether it is in a plastic bottle, a plastic bladder inside a box, or a glass."

Uh-huh. And plastic containers don't leach chemicals into the contents, right?

What a TOOL!

[The Food Addicts]

It looks as if the trend is moving away from glass to plastic and box wines. We just received a box of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc from Black Box Wines and I would have to save I was very impressed with the quality. My favorite wine still comes in a glass bottle I hope one day that changes. :)