I Drank (Nearly) All the Boxed Wine in the World. These Are the Best Kinds.

In college, I used to keep a box of wine in my fridge—Franzia, Chillable Red. The box of the people, I would say. My peers at that small liberal arts school knew they could stop in and find me, at any given moment, sipping on my second or third Mason jar full of the stuff. Because it was in a box, they also knew there was always a glass waiting on them, should they so choose to rap on my door. Outside of my five-year stint as a chain smoker (in the literal sense, not the music sense), I have struggled to find something more unifying than sharing a box of wine. So I've carried boxed wine with me, quite literally, into my thirties.

The difference, however, is that at a certain point, most of us start drinking wine out of actual wine glasses... well, at least, most of the time. Our taste evolves beyond the indistinct red blend nestled in the fridge. We no longer slap the bag. We show growth. Fortunately enough, the boxed wine game has evolved, too.

The notion of boxed wine may conjure up a certain cultural aesthetic, something that fancier folk might call tacky. The snobs may turn their nose up at the sight of a white box showing a heavy pour sloshing in a glass. But I genuinely wanted to see what the field beyond Franzia looked like these days. To do so, I tested far too much boxed wine, and now I find myself using words like "tannins" and "body" and "nice ass cardboard."

Because I am who I am, this list predominantly focuses on reds. For those who may be looking for a white, fear not: Many of these brands also have especially good whites. To get you started, House Wine's Chardonnay and the Naked Grape's Pinot Grigio are excellent bets. And there's a rosé that snuck in below, for good measure. With that, this is my assessment of the best boxed wines out there right now.

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To illustrate the difficulties of this weeks-long tasting job, I’d like to note: I assumed I wasn’t doing due diligence unless I finished every box. Then my liver screamed out, "Dear God, you’re 30!" So I knew this was the first box I really vibed with, because it was also the first box I happily polished off. What drew me was its flavor—more robust than most of the boxes I tried, blending multiple red varietals together, leaving you with a glass that doesn’t lean too dry or sweet. You feel like you’re drinking a complex wine that isn’t going to hit too bluntly on the palate.

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I believe that it’s the red blends that stand out in this experiment above any other grape variations. And at the top of that red blend list is Bota Box’s Nighthawk Black. This box is deeply, deeply important to me. Whereas the House Wine is just a damn good glass of red, the flavor profile in Nighthawk is more complex. And while some boxed wines come in a bit thin in taste, Nighthawk is rich and full-bodied in a way that its competitors just can’t stack up to. And that’s a tough task, because boxed wine is notoriously easy to stack. Let's just say I wouldn't have guessed this came out of a plastic tap.

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Who says you can’t go home? No, this isn’t my first child, Chillable Red. It’s a dark red blend, and it’s good as hell. But man does it also manage to hit me in that nostalgic college way. It's fresh, but accessible. I also woke up with a massive hangover, because the danger of boxed wine is that you're not finishing off a bottle. With a box, you're wading into I Love Lucy's falling-out-of-the-grape-bucket territory.

This is where I get on my pedestal, which is made out of cardboard, to say that Franzia is a legitimate wine contender. This bolder variation has a fullness without going too far into sweet territory. It also has a buttery tang, adding an interesting layer of flavor that elevates it beyond a run-of-the-mill boxed red. I can’t count the times my friends and I shared an expensive bottle of garbage wine, pretending to care about it, when Franzia would have done the job better.

That said: Y’all have to work on that spout mechanism, because I almost chose sobriety over the battle it took to get it open.

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I suppose that I had a bit of a slant coming into this experiment, since I wanted to focus on my favorite grape: Cabernet Sauvignon. That gave Black Box a massive head start, because it does a Cab Sav quite wonderfully. This is, arguably, the box I would choose to consistently have around if I wanted a glass of wine at the end of the day. Where some wines may be subtle, Black Box has an established flavor, good depth, and a solid shelf life. (About three weeks, baby!) The box feels a bit plasticky to me, but that's just because I’m more of a matte guy. Sue me.

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This one is plenty fine. In general, Bota Box tends to have a stronger collection of wines, but narrowly, Bota’s Cab Sav is one of the fullest of the boxed Cab Savs, coming in right below Black Box... which is saying something, because this varietal tends to lean sweet in boxed form for some reason. To quote what I announced to no one after two glasses, "I’m here for a long time, not a good time." What I meant is that I don’t expect this wine to knock me on my ass, as it's a bit thinner and unassuming. This is a great wine for, say, a party where you’d like to share your box.

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I love La Vieille Ferme in bottle form, so I wanted to see if the rosé would hold up on the box front. The answer is yes—mostly. Testing this boxed flavor profile against the bottle reinforced why I prefer reds over lighter varieties in boxes. It tasted fresh but less robust than the bottle, and apparently there’s a scientific reason for that: a process referred to as "flavor scalping," where some of the more floral notes from wine are able to escape into the plastic. So, there you have it. Would I still recommend La Vieille Ferme in a box? Absolutely. Something has to remind me of summer until the sun comes back out for more than three hours a day.

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There’s not a wine in this top 10 that I’d turn my nose up to. You have your serious wine collectors, and that’s fine and good, but this is a ranking of boxed wines. Let’s not call this church. That said, Maison Cubi’s Syrah is good enough to keep around the house for a bind. Granted, when it comes to this list of (mostly) red wines, this is the one exception where I’d say: If you want a Syrah, go buy a bottle of Syrah. What Maison Cubi has going for it is that it's a specific Syrah twist that you're not going to get from a red blend, so if boxed really is your style, then this is a major deal.

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$14.99

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I hate being a jerk, but I’m going to be a jerk. Naked Grape is the bottle of wine I get people when I want them to think I’ve tried, but I actually haven’t. It’s a nice design. Fun name. Saying “naked” makes us giggle; no one fun ever outgrows that. But surprisingly, this boxed Cabernet Sauvignon varietal is stronger than it has the right to be! It’s not taking the top spot, but Naked Grape has a Cab Sav that isn’t just on the less expensive side. I would also say I prefer its box more than its bottle. I know, I know. That's a bold claim, but look at the times we're living in. Be bold, like Naked Grape.

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Like a lot of wine drinkers, I think I was first drawn to this box because of the design on the outside. We can act as sommelier-esque as we want about flavor profiles, but if you have an ugly exterior, the sell is going to be much harder. Then I discovered this was a Trader Joe’s wine. Why do they always pull me in with their folksy designs? The flavor profile fits well with Trader Joe’s aesthetic, though—surprisingly competent to be that cheap. I’d say that’s a dig at Trader Joe’s, but it’s also how I’d describe myself. The wine isn’t complex or interesting, but it’s reliable for a glass or two. There are better Australian Shiraz options out there, but then again, do they come in a box that makes you feel cooler than you are?

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I asked for a dry red wine and Vin Vault answered. There’s definitely a vibe that this is a wine that was designed for a box. You know what I’m saying? I think some companies seem to put the same wine they bottle into a bag into a box and say, “Here you go!” but there’s a layering to Vin Vault that a lot of other varietals don’t hit as squarely. With that said, I didn't love the fruity spice to this one, but that’s a factor of personal taste, not quality. Shame on me for not loving the fruits and spices. Shame on them for not doubling down on an earthier richness.

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