by Schmalz and Shen (italicized)
I’ll come clean, I enjoy alcohol. I know that this may come as a shock to some, but it’s true. I’ll enjoy a post race recover beer (usually Miller High Life – my favorite couch beer), I’ll have a cocktail or a glass of wine, I’ll even drink the dodgy home brews made by my family members. So when the opportunity to review the Three Thieves’ Bandit wine came from the Bandit Racing team, I thanked the Lord for answering my prayers. Some ask for world peace, I ask for booze – that’s how I roll.
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The concept behind the Three Thieves’ wine is that they take the surplus production from wineries and package it and sell for a fraction of the cost. I am not a wine snob or wine dude or wine swisher, I try wine, and if I like it, I drink it. I do not care what it costs, what the package looks like or anything else. If it tastes good and it’s cheap – I consider myself ahead of the game.
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The wine comes in jugs and boxes, and thanks to the power lushes at the Shen house, I was left with only one box of Pino Grigio to review. I’m not normally a Grigio guy, I trend more towards red wine – enjoying the Chianti lately, but the wine had an edge on the other wine in the house – it was free.
Hey, I get to be the italicized dumbass this time. Cool. What can I say, if wifey wants a drink, wifey gets a drink. It’s not my fault Schmalz took forever to pick up his share of the wine. And if you don’t understand why I’d rather incur the wrath of Schmalz instead of the wrath of the wife, I invite you to look up the word ‘uxorious’.
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Normally a box of wine, if it were a classical music piece, would be called “Prelude to a Domestic Disputeâ€, but the Pino Grigio was very smooth. To me it tasted a little more like a Sauvignon Blanc. Not too keen on the Blanc myself, but fans of smoother whites would like this box.
NOT a juice box.
I know even less about wine than Schmalz, but I can say only one of the boxes made me make a funny face. I wish I could tell you which one it was, but alcohol and recall don’t mix. The rest were actually quite tasty. I did make a nice braised beef ribs with squash and broccoli rabe using some of the Merlot. The rest of the Merlot went really well with the ribs.
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Time For Hate
It’s wine. In a box. Don’t let your shallow friends see you pour it out.
Profits from this wine go towards keeping Evil MH and Jeff King Is Awesome in lycra. Sure, it’ll give you a buzz, but what about the consequences?
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Where does this leave us?
If you can buy wine that costs less and tastes great, why wouldn’t you? Oh, you’re shallow? I understand…Â
Ok, we just ran a wine review by a guy who professed his undying devotion to Miller High Life in the same article. What have we done?
i expect many preems for wine in a box next year BTW I am riding for Team Boons Farm next year
That’s it, Karl. When you said King was fat and I was overrated, I let it slide. I didn’t make a big deal of it when you claimed never to have heard of Lubeley, and said that ADM was "pretty fast for a lawyer," whatever that means. But when you compare our sponsor’s premium Bandit wines, in their convenient and innovative Tetra Pak containers, to Boone’s Farm "Country Kwencher," well those are fighting words.
I pretty much say everyone is over rated, and fat. i still dont know who Lubeley is or ADM but if he is an ambulance chaser he might be very fast.
Team Boons Farm will dominate next year
Karl said I was fat? When?
But seriously, I agree with Matt. Bandit wine is good quality wine, breaking the mold of what people think of box wine. Be open-minded and get past the wine snobbery of the box. A bottle, or box is just a container, and Bandit is putting higher quality wine in hip, convenient packaging. Plus it is 1 full liter instead of 750 milliliters!
It is for sale all around New York, including Fresh Direct (mail-order), Bottlerocket (19th street), Garnet (68th and Lex), West Side Wine (83rd and Columbus) and many other locations in NY and NJ. Give it a try and support a company that supports cycling.
I like to mix it with the house favorite – I call it "Pinot Gr_ipple!
it looks like moonshine
Reminds me of my franzia-pong filled frat boy days…
Previous post didn’t work out quite the way I intended. Let’s try again.
I’m all for innovation, especially when it comes to things vinous. Well, it might be said that I’m in favor of anyhting that has to do with wine. Fair enough. I like my wine and I like it often and in large quantities. I just dont get this new packaging. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a cork-worshipping luddite. I love the screwcap and I wish all my wines came with them, especially the expensive ones and the ones I intend to keep for 10 years or more. Nothing bums me out more than opening a trophy bottle that is redolent of cork-taint. I also think good-wine-in-a-box is an idea whose time is overdue. But wine in a box should have an internal bladder to keep the wine from spoiling. Wine in an airless bladder will last indefinitely. That’s the whole point of wine in a box, isn’t it? When I was a kid we used to get our milk in glass bottles. Somehow this was more aesthetically pleasing than the carton. We mourned the day when the milkman gave up the route and we had to buy milk in cardboard at the supermarket. Why do I want wine in a box if the box is basically just a milk carton with a screwcap?
Thanks Patrick. I had a feeling you would comment because when we met at the cross clinic I could tell that you are into, and know a lot about, high-end wine.
Let me give you my answers: The best reason is that it is cheaper. In the low to medium price wine bracket, a lot of the cost is in label, bottle and cork. With the box, you are just paying for wine. Bandit costs less than $10, you are not paying for extras. Even the bladder costs more and makes more sense with bigger boxes, i.e. 5 liters.
Another reason is that boxes don’t break and are easier to pack for things like a picnic. And easier to open when you get there. You also correctly pointed out that organic corks are an imperfect seal. The box is much better insurance than the traditional cork that has up to a 10% failure rate.
But my personal favorite answer is that I like to buck the wine snobs by drinking quality wine out of a hip, innovative, non-traditional package.
That is all I have, but I hope it convinces you to try a Bandit sometime. If not, I will make sure Bandit comes to a prime near you and I will force you to try it.
I’d love to try it. I’ll try any wine.
So the wine is $10 a box. Not expensive, but not exactly T-bird cheap either. There are many $10 competitors that come to mind, mainly from Spain and South America. If you allow yourself to stretch to $12, you run into some serious wine, like the 2004 Marquis Phillips Shiraz, which got some ridiculous scores from the wine press and tastes like it costs 3 times as much.
For personal consumption, I suppose a box is fine. And a 1L box is probably just the right size. Once opened, wine lasts (at most) 3 days in the fridge before its oxidized beyond drinkability, and the 1 L size is probably small enough to get used within that 3-day window. 1L also allows you enough wine for the recipe AND a glass or two for the chef.
But wine is a social beverage, one we drink with people we like and people who matter to us. Somehow, if I had company over, or even just opening some wine for the wife, opening a bottle just feels a little better than opening a box. If that makes me a snob, so be it. I like my beer out of a bottle instead of a can, too.
Just one more random observation on wine:
Thanksgiving is upon us, and with it one of the worst acts of French terrorism: The beaujolais nouveaux.
Do not buy this swill. It is awful. There are many great wines from France, this isn’t among them, not even close.
I have never tasted the Bandit wines, but I promise you that anything they sell, in box or jug, is preferrable to beaujolais nouveaux.
Beaujolais nouveaux? Just say Non!
i am getting totally amped for a box wine preem. way better than the two gallon olive oil preem Molloy won last year from colivita,
Alright, Shen, I took the bait:
ux‧o‧ri‧ous  [uhk-sawr-ee-uhs]
–adjective. doting upon, foolishly fond of, or affectionately submissive toward one’s wife.
In a word: henpecked! Brilliant! Thanks for the lesson.
Andy
What a data of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable familiarity about unexpected feelings.
my web page … cialis from canada
i would probably sprint harder for wine than for cash.
I remember when i won a case of beer at the Lowell crit in the 1/2 race but couldn’t pick it up because I was a junior! it must be the irish gene…