Box wine vs bottle: Which is better value for money?

Goodness me we drink a lot of wine in the UK. We are the sixth biggest wine-drinking country in the world, guzzling 5% of the total amount produced (equivalent to Russia), according to  Vinexpo,.

Even small supermarkets have vast aisles dedicated to wine from all over the world and wine club membership is booming. Wine is big business in this relatively small island. But are we encouraged to waste it?

A case (of wine) in point

We don’t drink a huge amount in our house; there seems to be a direct correlation between how much we imbibe and how early our toddlers wake up. However, it often feels as if there’s a choice between wasting wine and drinking more than we want to.

And that’s because when we open a bottle it feels like starting a timer. That bottle has to be drunk within two days or the wine will potentially be wasted, meaning that if my husband and I want a 125ml glass each, we need to finish more than half a bottle the following night or throw it away.

So we sometimes don’t have a glass when we want one, or do have a glass when we don’t – just to try and minimise the waste.

But now we’ve found a new way to potentially save money.

A great big box of wine (GBBW)

It turns out that buying a bigger quantity of wine could help us drink less. I know this seems counter-intuitive, but hear me out. While a bottle of white wine needs to be finished within a few days a box can last six weeks after it has been opened. Presumably this is because the wine isn’t exposed to the air by an open top.

The wine boxes being sold in our local supermarket are the equivalent to three bottles each, meaning a wine box could allow you to enjoy as little as half a bottle of wine a week with no waste.

Cheaper by the box

Even better, not only did our large box of wine last longer and reduce waste, it was cheaper too. We tried the supermarket’s house pinot grigot – it’s unlikely to wow wine tasters but it’s a perfectly pleasant summery drink (Oh don’t be a wine snob, we like it).

The supermarket in question sells the same wine by the bottle too – but for more money. The box was £12.75 which worked out at £4.25per 75cl. Meanwhile, in a bottle the price was £6 for 75cl – more than 40% more expensive overall. That’s quite a saving.

Time to ditch the bottles? (Fotolia)

Did it help us drink less?

At first, no. Because the wine is hidden in a box, you can’t see how much you’re pouring and you don’t realise that you’ve sipped your way through half a bottle just watching Sherlock.

However, after a shaky start we went back to our more moderate drinking habits, happy that we could drink at our own pace rather than racing to finish a bottle before it spoiled.

But it is worth noting that it can be harder to see how much you’re consuming when it’s coming out of an oversized juice box.  Drinking more won’t save you money (and won’t spare your liver), so if you’re someone who finds open wine a siren call then this is clearly not the right solution for you!

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Other ways to save on wine

While extolling the virtues of a Big Box of Wine to a friend, we were encouraged to try a special wine stopper that creates a vacuum in the bottle before re-corking it.

This allows the wine to be kept for several days more – even as much as a week depending on the wine. The gadget we bought cost £11.03 but I think it will pay for itself after just three bottles of waste-free wine.

We are also members of a wine club for when we want fancier wine than Sainsbury’s own. Prices there are, on average, 20% cheaper than at the supermarket or off-licence, so that’s a good way to enjoy a better bottle at a much lower price.

Some wine clubs require you to commit to spending a regular amount of making a minimum number of purchases a year, but if you’re buying wine often then they can mean big savings.

Can wine boxes be as good as wine? Should we all just stop spending money on booze? Have your say using the comments below.