Boxed wine is a pro move for holiday parties. Here are 8 to love.

More than 15 years ago, in France, Jenny Lefcourt found herself rethinking boxed wine.

“When you live in wine regions in France, it’s easy to go to many wineries with a jug and fill it up with wine for the week, or to buy a bag-in-box for everyday drinking,” says the owner and president of Jenny & François Selections, an importer that specializes in small-production and natural wines.

That accessibility inspired Lefcourt to create From the Tank, a line of boxed wines made with organically and sustainably grown grapes from the south of France. “We were one of the very first high-quality wines in a box, and we were up against the idea that wine in a box is really bad, commercial stuff,” she says.

Plenty of people still think that boxes are synonymous with low-caliber wine, but quality and cardboard aren’t mutually exclusive. As winemakers worldwide evaluate the carbon-intensive footprint of glass bottles, some are embracing the lighter large-format packaging that’s easier on the environment.

Thinking inside the box has economic benefits, too. As anyone who’s ever rationalized their Costco cart can attest, buying in bulk keeps costs down. For instance, each three-liter box of From the Tank costs around $33. Put another way, that’s four 750-milliliter bottles of wine from a well-regarded producer for less than $10 a pop.

It’s hard to argue with that value proposition, especially as end-of-year expenses soar like reindeer. Once opened, boxed wines can last for weeks — or even months — in the fridge, so you don’t have to finish leftovers right away. If you’re stocking up for a holiday party, or want to keep an easy-drinking option around for happy hours or houseguests, boxed wines make a lot of sense.

La vie en cardboard isn’t entirely rosy, though. Quality varies, and some styles of wine are better suited to the format than others. Here’s how to find boxed wines that impress.

How to find good boxed wines

When you’re shopping for boxed wines, the most important factors to consider are age and freshness. Look for newly packaged options with vintage years or recent dates on the box, not years-old expressions gathering dust on hard-to-reach shelves.

Youth is key because of the ways that oxygen permeates different wine packaging. Unopened glass bottles protect wine beautifully. Once you’ve uncorked them, however, extra oxygen sits in the empty space below the neck. That’s why the remaining wine is only good for another day or so.

Boxed wines have the inverse time frame. Oxygen seeps into plastic and cardboard quickly, so bag-in-box wines are at their best for six to nine months after they’re packaged. However, once you’ve unsealed a box, it can still taste great for up to three months, because the plastic bag inside contracts around the remaining liquid, cutting off the oxygen.

Which wines work best in boxes?

Generally, light-bodied chillable reds, crisp white wines and dry rosés are good candidates for bag-in-box packaging.

“The kinds of wines that are best suited to the box are the kinds of wines that you’d want to keep in the fridge anyway,” says Jason Haas, proprietor of Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles, California. Tablas Creek released its first boxed wine as an experiment to counter the carbon impact of glass bottles. Their boxes became so popular that the estate now limits purchases to three per customer.

How to store and serve boxed wines

Store boxed wines in the fridge before and after you unseal them to slow the effects of oxygen, Haas suggests. He comes by the insight honestly: When the Tablas Creek team was developing Patelin de Tablas, they put the same wine in a bag and in a box to measure the effects of oxygen over time.

“For the first six months, [aging] was virtually identical,” he says. “Six to nine months in, it depended on how it was stored — if it was in the fridge the whole time, it could still be in great shape.”

For those of us whose passion for home entertaining outpaces our kitchen storage, the physical footprint of boxed wine is useful, too. One three-liter box contains as much wine as four traditional bottles, but it occupies as much space as just two.

Practical considerations aside, quality boxed wine is a guaranteed conversation-starter at a holiday party or dinner, says Marie Cheslik, a content creator and the author of How to Read a Wine Label.

“It’s a bit of a statement piece,” she says. “It wipes away a lot of the pretension that surrounds wine. When you see someone bring a boxed wine, you just think, ‘Oh, this is going to be fun.’”

8 boxed wines we loved

Alileo Young Bianco

$24.99; Alcohol by volume (ABV): 12.5%

Savory and bright, this lemon-scented white wine is made with grillo, a zippy Sicily variety. Each box contains 1.5 liters. Serve it with ceviche, shrimp cocktail and other party appetizers, or pour yourself an ice-cold glass straight from the fridge to sip while you’re cooking the holiday meal.

Schplink Grüner Veltliner

$32; ABV: 12.5%

Approachable and food-friendly, this 3-liter container of Austrian white wine has tart acidity and a dash of mineral complexity. A great happy-hour pour, it can easily transition to the dinner table alongside fish fillets or lemony pasta.

From the Tank Rosé

$33; ABV: 12% to 14% (price range depends on the vintage)

This easy, breezy rosé is exactly what I want to sip while snacking on salted nuts, charcuterie and crudité before a big holiday meal. Each 3-liter box contains wine made from a blend of sustainably grown grenache and cinsault from plots near Avignon, France, and has strawberry, raspberry and citrus notes.

Field Recordings Boxíe Orange

$49; ABV: 12.7%

Created by winemaker Andrew Jones, whose bottled orange wines are also terrific, this 3-liter crowd-pleaser from Paso Robles, California, features a blend of white wine grapes fermented with native yeasts. Expect ripe cantaloupe and peach flavors followed by a crisp, savory finish. Try it with pizza, roast chicken or warm grain salads.

Ami Ami Vin Rouge

$25; ABV: 13.6%

A blend of syrah and malbec grapes from the south of France gives this 1.5-liter box of red wine lots of juicy freshness that’s perfect alongside cheese plates and satays. Its smart packaging makes it a chic addition to the snacks table at a party, too. “I tasted a lot of boxed reds that were either super flabby, too bold for my taste or total acid bombs,” says Oset Babur-Winter, a former drinks editor at Food & Wine magazine and the founder of Prix Fixe, a gifting suite for hospitality brands. “I think of Ami Ami rouge as the Goldilocks of boxed reds.”

Herisson Vin Rouge Passetoutgrain

$42; ABV: 13%

Cheslik is partial to these 3-liter boxes of lively, chillable red wine made with gamay and pinot noir grapes from a family-run estate in Burgundy, France. Its juicy red currant and crisp black tea notes complement just about everything, including snack boards and roast turkey.

Sandy Giovese Vino Rosso

$33.99; ABV: 12%

Expect tart cherry and cranberry flavors from these 3-liter boxes of fresh and fun red wine made with Italy’s sangiovese and trebbiano grapes. With its bright finish and smooth tannins, it pairs with roast pork, pizza and other hearty dishes.

Tablas Creek Patelin de Tablas

$95; ABV: 13%

This 3-liter chillable boxed red wine is an investment piece with a devoted following: All previous Patelin de Tablas sold out, according to the company website. The current vintage features a Rhône-style blend of syrah, grenache, mourvèdre and counoise grapes from California’s Central Coast. With cranberries offset by black tea and earthiness, it’s a worthy accompaniment to turkey or duck — and might just turn boxed wine skeptics into believers.