The Wine Blokes

I recently saw some wine which was contained in a 1 litre cardboard juice carton similar to those used for cranberry juice. I was therefore not surprised to learn that Cordier Mestrezat would be unveiling lunch-box sized cartons of wine designed for consumption during lunch-breaks at the desk.

“Instead of buying a soda to go with their sandwich, people might want a bit of Bordeaux,” Cordier Mestrezat managing director David Bolzan said.

“If you’re having lunch at your desk and you want a drop of wine, you’re not going to get a bottle, a glass and a corkscrew. But you could buy a carton.”

The 250ml cartons will be called Tandem and are due to appear at this week’s London International Wine Fair, which runs from Tuesday to Thursday.

In a similar debate to the one over the use of screw-tops and synthetic corks over cork-bark stoppers, wine experts and avid drinkers are raising eyebrows over the idea of drinking from these cartons with straws.

Although the straws have been designed with extra holes to allow a more natural drinking experience, questions are still being raised over whether seeing the colour and smelling the bouquet of a wine before drinking it are too important to be relegated to a straw – especially since Cordier Mestrezat have been making fine wine since 1886.

Although wine consumption in France has nearly halved in the last 40 years, people are drinking less because of concerns over health, increases in wine strength and changes in drinking culture – not because wine isn’t available enough. Surely the focus should be on enjoying small amounts of very good wine rather than drinking from cartons as though wine can be likened to Ribena? Have your say below.