Wine in a box (yes, good wine)

The innovative wine company Yellow + Blue has come out with its fourth offering, a crisp sauvignon blanc from Chile. It joins a malbec and a torrontes from Argentina and a rosé of syrah and monastrell from Spain that, together, present  a quartet  of excellent wines for everyday drinking. See my MSNBC.com column on Yellow + Blue from earlier this year.

The wines are all made from organic grapes, which is worth applauding in itself. They’ve also made me a convert to wine in a box, a concept that I found a bit difficult to swallow until now. The wines come in one-liter boxes that contain one-third more wine than a typical glass bottle. The juice is shipped to this country in containers and then packed  in the Tetra Pak boxes. The process reduces the carbon footprint of shipping wine. (The  point is that Yellow + Blue = green.) The 2009 Sauvignon Blanc from Chile’s Central Valley is fermented in stainless steel with native (naturally occurring) yeasts and shows notes of lime and orange with a bit of vanilla on the finish. It has a suggested price of $11. Once you pour yourself a glass, you’ll quickly forget that it came from a box.